The Josephine

In 2013 we were invited to propose designs for a micro unit tower as part of an exhibit in the Museum of the City of New York, “Making Rooms”. The design explored a split level building section that allowed tall ceiling in half the space of the micro loft to allow bed bunks over the bathrooms. The split-level allows pairs of floors to have the same typical 10-foot floor-to-floor height on average that is critical in high-rise construction. It also considered collapsible bathrooms as a way to save visual space in the room when unused and a larger than normal room for bathing when open. Returning from New York we circulated the design to various developers capable of financing such a project. The Josephine proposal on a property in Little Italy was one such effort. We made a number of less developed proposals for the same concepts without luck in the flowing years. In 2017 we determined to purchase a property and develop the proposal ourselves albeit at a smaller scale. The Abpopa Hotel, completed in 2019, is the culmination of this effort.