By contrast to the Brutalist concrete form of the Standard Highline building that rises eighteen stories above the High Line, the new restaurant, which is set beneath the High Line’s trellis, was designed in brick by Roman and Williams to respond to the context and history of its neighborhood. The scale, materiality and detailing all take into careful consideration the experience of the pedestrian at street level. Originally planned to be a glass trapezoid, in step with the footprint of the site, Roman and Williams fought to design the space to be rectangular, defying the path of the High Line – in essence, taking the ground floor away from the tower and giving it back to the streets, back to New York.

The brick restaurant celebrates a weighty solidarity and blends well with the context of the area’s surroundings. The highly detailed interior features a palette of earthy, familiar materials in wood, tile, and cooper, and furnishings and finishes that have been rediscovered and updated. The bar area has a milky palette, while the restaurant is darker and more meaty – milk and meat. Desiring to create a floor of copper, Roman and Williams researched many options and ended up finding a method that allowed them to cover the floor in 480,000 copper pennies.