Location is everything, as they say, and that includes doorman stations. In older co-op and condo buildings, they are often situated in places that make the doorman's job a lot harder, especially when the doorman is also responsible for accepting packages. In this episode, Marilyn Sygrove, president of Sygrove Associates Design Group, shares how one co-op renovated its old, dysfunctional doorman station into one that works for today’s requirements. Marilyn Sygrove is interviewed by Paula Chin for Habitat Magazine.
Thanks for listening. Subscribe to this podcast for more stories on how New York co-ops and condos have solved a myriad of problems. Brought to you by Habitat Magazine, the "bible" that hundreds of board directors turn to every day!
Location is everything, as they say, and that includes doorman stations. In older co-op and condo buildings, they are often situated in places that make the doorman's job a lot harder, especially when the doorman is also responsible for accepting packages. In this episode, Marilyn Sygrove, president of Sygrove Associates Design Group, shares how one co-op renovated its old, dysfunctional doorman station into one that works for today’s requirements. Marilyn Sygrove is interviewed by Paula Chin for Habitat Magazine.
Thanks for listening. Subscribe to this podcast for more stories on how New York co-ops and condos have solved a myriad of problems. Brought to you by Habitat Magazine, the "bible" that hundreds of board directors turn to every day!
[00:00:40] Paula Chin: Welcome to Problem Solved, a conversation about problems that have been solved in New York co-op and condo buildings. I'm Paula Chin, and my guest today is Marilyn Sygrove, president of Sygrove Associates Design Group. Welcome, Marilyn.
[00:00:56] Marilyn Sygrove: Good morning.
[00:00:58] Paula Chin: Location is everything, as they say, and that includes doorman stations. In older co-ops and condos, stations are often situated in places that make a doorman's job a lot harder, and can also affect quality of life in the building. I understand that's a problem you dealt with recently.
[00:01:18] Marilyn Sygrove: Yes. And actually, that we deal with in most cases when designing doorman stations because in many of the post-war buildings, lifestyles were very different. Doorman stations were not necessarily next to the door. The first thing we try to do is to coordinate our designs where the stations need to be in a reasonable proximity to the door as well as to package space, which is critical.
[00:01:47] Paula Chin: What was the particular problem at this building?
[00:01:50] Marilyn Sygrove: In this building, the station was in an awkward position for the doorman. Either he hung out at the station, and then he was away from the door, or he hung out in the vestibule waiting for someone at the curb so that he could open the door for them, and then he'd have to go inside and either announce them from behind his desk or he'd have to retrieve packages for the incoming resident. It was just a combination of really dysfunctional placement.
[00:02:17] Paula Chin: And what about the package room? Was that located in a bad space?
[00:02:22] Marilyn Sygrove: They primarily had a walk-in package closet, which is wonderful to have that much space, but bad for other things – for example, bad for communications, bad for service, and bad for security presence in the lobby. Once the doorman goes into a package closet, he is lost, in essence, from view, and to us that's not an optimum solution. We looked at the lobby holistically and found that there was undiscovered, underutilized space. Through probes and inquiries, we were able to determine that we could actually convert that space into usable package storage right within the lobby. Our solution was to create beautiful decorative doors so that you wouldn't even know that it was package space.
[00:03:19] Paula Chin: Can you tell us how you presented it to the board? Did you offer them several plans and what the cost was, and how did they make their decision?
[00:03:28] Marilyn Sygrove: When we are hired, we will survey the space. We will also get input from the board and/or the committee as to what their priorities are, and then we will prepare three designs. I had already done a preliminary budget estimate to give them an idea of what a lobby would cost including additional package space, new desk finishes and furnishings, and in this particular case, new entry doors with sliding doors. Our designs were really geared towards that original agreed budget range. We prepared three designs with three different options of locating the desk facing in different directions, how we would capture additional package space, how the new sliding doors would work with a vestibule and the secondary set of swing doors.
There's a lot to it. We meet with them, we present the three schemes and they will comment, “Gee, we love the layout of A, we like the style of B, but we love the color of C.” And by the end of that meeting, which generally runs about an hour and a half to two hours, once we listen to everyone's feedback, we're able to get a consensus as to their responses, to our design, and we are able to finalize a design.
[00:04:40] Paula Chin: Can we go back to the vestibule and the street doors? What were they, how was that redone and what was the benefit?
[00:04:49] Marilyn Sygrove: There were two sets of doors. There were the main entry doors, which were swing doors. There was another interior set of vestibule doors, but they were perpendicular to each other, so it wasn't a straight run where you would go through the front doors and then walk a few more steps and go directly through the vestibule doors.
The doorman was inside of the lobby past those two sets of doors, where he didn't have easy access. The building was very interested in investigating the exterior doors being sliding doors. This way, when a resident comes to the building, those doors open. If it's terribly cold, those secondary doors are generally closed, but the doorman would be able to open them in close proximity to the desk. During lovely weather, those secondary doors could be opened, so residents and guests would basically have easy access into the lobby.It also gave the opportunity for the doorman to be freed up to do whatever services were requested of him at that time.
[00:05:55] Paula Chin: What about the actual doorman desk? Was that changed as well? Were there problems with it originally?
[00:06:01] Marilyn Sygrove: Yes. We find in our experience that most lobbies are not addressed for 15, 20, 25 years at a time.As you can imagine, the amount of technology that has changed, whether it's security monitors, key drawers for distributing keys to dog walkers or someone that's cleaning your apartment or guests, that type of technology is now readily available. Also in the olden days, intercom panels were very large and had all 200 apartments with a button for each one. That has changed, and now it is often done with the dialup system so that the doorman doesn't have any cumbersome equipment at the desk. He just has a phone.
So the desk was completely revamped. We were also asked to create some type of health screen for the door staff so that if a delivery person or a guest comes to the desk, there is a barrier. But rather than it being something that is very temporary looking, we actually designed it with the same antique bronze trim finishes and plexiglass where it looks as though it were intended and belonged with the entire design of the lobby.
[00:07:22] Paula Chin: So this plexiglass and trim matched the walls for the new package rooms. Is that correct?
[00:07:29] Marilyn Sygrove: Yes, that is correct.
[00:07:30] Paula Chin: Marilyn, what's the takeaway here for buildings that are doing lobby renovations?
[00:07:36] Marilyn Sygrove: I think the most important thing is to have a design team. Take a look at your lobby holistically. Before you decide, “Gee, let's just do the desk, or let's just do the doors,” lobbies are generally large and they are a very large investment. The takeaway would be to take a good hard look at all of the key elements before making a decision. And plan for your investment to really pay off long term.
[00:08:07] Paula Chin: And is that what the board did here?
[00:08:09] Marilyn Sygrove: Absolutely. They also did their elevator cabs and hallways because they recognized that in doing one space, the other spaces would have a tendency to be of a lesser level, if you will.
[00:08:21] Paula Chin: So one thing led to another, but they decided to go for the whole package.
[00:08:25] Marilyn Sygrove: Over time, yes. We designed everything in the style of the original period of the building, which is important to us. It may have all the new bells and whistles for service and convenience, but the aesthetic was inspired by its heritage and its proximity to, in this particular case, the East River. It was very well received. It's a long-lasting design and I hope that we will hear from them in 20 to 25 years about a little tweaking here and there.
[00:08:57] Paula Chin: Marilyn, thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:09:00] Marilyn Sygrove: My pleasure. Thank you.