The Suffolk is a new 30-story residential building located in the Lower East Side (LES) of Manhattan. We sought to mirror the historical and cultural complexity of the surroundings in our design in order to create a vibrant modern space related to the urban environment. Given the neighborhood’s rich cultural and social palimpsest, we used complexity and layering as a tool. Contrasting forms, furniture, and art come together into a design that is deliberately, and joyfully, disjointed. The result is a unique series of spaces that are nonetheless linked to the historical continuum of the LES.