Inside General Assembly’s Vibrant Shoppable Residence at 144 Vanderbilt

If there’s one constant within the sophisticated, craft-forward interiors conceived by New York firm General Assembly, it’s founder Sarah Zames and partner Colin Stief’s affinity for independent makers. That spirit guided the duo when developer Tankhouse invited them to stage three shoppable residences within 144 Vanderbilt, the SO-IL–designed multiunit building whose distinctive scalloped pink concrete façade stands out in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood. After previously outfitting a duplex there with furnishings and objects sourced from Assembly Line, their retail gallery devoted to local studios and finely crafted furnishings, Zames and Stief approached their latest endeavor with an even more adventurous mindset.

The latest gallery introduces a broader roster of collaborators while further advancing Assembly Line’s mission to present vanguard makers within lived environments. (That approach has already resonated throughout the building, with many residents incorporating Assembly Line pieces into their homes and several commissioning General Assembly directly.) Here, the pieces embrace an even richer palette and more tactile surfaces, sparking a lively exchange with the building’s raw concrete surfaces while remaining firmly rooted in Assembly Line’s flair for artisanal rarities. “We approached this residence as another chapter within an ongoing evolution rather than a completely separate project,” Stief explains. “Some of the colors and finishes carry through from earlier units, but our interests have shifted over the past two years.”

That evolution emerges vividly through a multitude of expressive moments. In one corner, a delicate flower-inspired lighting sculpture by Yuxuan Huang rests atop a floating maple console with rounded edges by Steven Bukowski, who also contributed a velvet stool punctuated with a heart-shaped cutout and a dynamic bronze mirror framed by angular walnut blocks that cant across the surface in a hypnotic dance. Nearby, an undulating walnut bench hand-carved by Pat Kim sits beneath a luminous wall-mounted lightbox by In Common With, its amber-toned mosaic glass patchwork casting a warm, gentle glow. Art throughout the residence comes courtesy of Amélie du Chalard, who selected works that introduce bursts of color rather than simply echoing the palette and furnishings.

Across the building’s 26 residences, 21 distinct floor plans gave Stief and Zames ample room to explore new spatial arrangements compared to their earlier installations. “The skylit second-floor landing became a place to showcase more sculptural furnishings without interrupting the openness of the plan,” Zames says, referencing a low-slung leather lounge chair by Juntos Projects. Elsewhere, the duo introduced a darker room off the living area that amplifies the impact of the expansive windows and surrounding tree canopy. Across all three residences, however, the palette responds to the architecture itself, from the exposed concrete and green window frames to the pink tones that wash inward through the façade and the Blue Fusion stone countertops anchoring the state-of-the-art kitchens.

The residence also provides an ideal backdrop for a substantial presentation of new pieces by Kalon, the Los Angeles furniture studio founded by Johann Pauwen and Michaele Simmering. Throughout the interiors, they are showcasing the latest iteration of their Material Studies series, a suite of rigorous furnishings that play with illusion and depth through novel applications of materials like richly pigmented stone. “We’ve used Kalon in our projects for years, and this felt like the right opportunity to showcase the breadth of their work,” says Stief, pointing in particular to the studio’s new outdoor collection, which perfectly suits the building’s secluded terraces. Among the highlights is the Rugosa Dining Table, pairing a dusky bronzed glass top with powder-coated aluminum legs, alongside editions of the Rugosa chair upholstered in exuberant Élitis textiles.

Although every room embodies the warmth and ease of an inhabited home, Zames resists describing the unit as a model residence. “For us, they function more as immersive showrooms that allow people to experience independent designers in context,” she explains, noting how Assembly Line’s storefront can only accommodate a fraction of the studios they champion at one time. Viewing their offerings within a more lived-in setting, she adds, gives prospective buyers a fuller understanding of how “collectible and more accessible pieces can coexist naturally within the same environment.” Given the success of General Assembly’s outings in the building, it’s easy to imagine them returning for more as their roster continues to grow.