Upper West Side Residence is a minimal apartment located in New York, New York, designed by Worrell Young. Worrell Yeung has transformed a congested prewar apartment into a spacious and relaxed home, where tonal and material layers recall geological stratum. The renovation modernizes a traditional “Classic Six” layout, typical of the Upper West Side, enlarging rooms and maximizing daylight and views of the Natural History Museum below. 

Throughout, Worrell Yeung harmonizes old and new by restoring neglected historical details and inserting custom minimalist volumes and natural materials that brighten and articulate space. The homeowners, a young family with two children, approached Worrell Yeung to create an open and efficient living space.

The architects began reconfiguring the apartment’s “Classic Six” layout (a traditional pre-war plan segmented into six rooms) by removing walls to open and connect the kitchen and dining area to a living room overlooking the Natural History Museum. Additionally, a former “maid’s room” at the rear was expanded to create a third bedroom with an en-suite bath. Throughout, Worrell Yeung inserts modern architectural elements to open space and guide circulation through the revised plan. 

In the entry foyer, a custom wood-and-fabric screen wall creates a porous divider revealing the newly open-format, light-flooded dining-living room beyond. Within, two new archways define transitions between the foyer and living area and the living area and bedrooms. Lined in minimalist arcs of dark wood, these thresholds translate traditional prewar arches into an emphatically contemporary form.