Brooklyn Victorian building gets sleek gut renovation

New York City-based design and architecture firm Na-Da, or New Amsterdam Design Associates, has completed a gut renovation of a 19th-century mixed-use building that had been out of use for over 20 years in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood. (Na-Da also overhauled this well-known eyesore in Park Slope.)

Located at 336 Flatbush Avenue between Prospect Park and the Barclays Center, the 6,000-square-foot, five-story brownstone-style apartment underwent major structural work and now features new plumbing and mechanical systems, finished with a refresh of its angled Victorian facade.

The original floorplans were also reimagined to create more efficient and open apartments. By adapting existing shafts and interior corridors, Na-Da converted the original one-bedroom-one-bath units into two-bedroom-two-bath apartments.

There are now two such rental units on each of the four upper floors for a total of eight apartments, plus a retail space on the ground level, currently occupied by a pop-up gallery and cafe.

Each apartment is bright and generously proportioned, with large casement windows, white-oak flooring, an efficient kitchen with quartz-marble counters and Shaker-style cabinets, and gray hex-tiled bathrooms.

Lead designer for the project, Peter Feigenbaum, explains the connection between the period exterior and the minimalist interiors: “We wanted to play off pure geometries hidden in the ornamentation of the building’s elaborate Victorian facade. While the style is mostly informed by Japanese and Scandinavian modernist interiors, there are a few subtle nods to Brooklyn’s prewar brownstone heritage.”