Latest Media & Press

05/22/2023

Source: Architectural Record

Architectural Record – Galaxy Digital Article

Galaxy Digital had reservations. The New York–based company, which specializes in digital assets and blockchain technologies, had found a 36,000-square-foot office in Battery Park City to replace its SoHo headquarters and accommodate rapid growth. Yet while commissioning Young Projects to oversee the new office design and buildout in late 2021, its top executive fretted that moving to a neighborhood associated with investment banking could suggest that Galaxy was just another voice in the crowd, rather than a leader in the emerging business of cryptocurrency……

Prior to Galaxy’s occupancy, the Battery Park City office had been recently renovated for a solutions-driven data-science and clinical-research company. For the workstations, offices, and collaboration spaces located beyond reception, Young Projects and The SEED maximized reuse of the resources that were left behind. Both studios treated these interiors as opportunities for the connection and exchange that had been lacking in the SoHo headquarters. Young explains that his team employed sinuous glass partitions and a variety of carpet tiles to encourage staffers to use interior pathways for circulation as well as gathering. And while Heshmati notes that the lighting designers left much existing overhead infrastructure intact, they linked long linear tubes containing wide-aperture LEDs into graphic ceiling elements for wayfinding. Similarly, in the office’s central cafe, rows of pendant lights interwoven with aluminum linked chains simultaneously hide ceiling-mounted systems and distinguish banquette and bar seating from other vignettes. “There’s a very explicit difference between how you understand the ceiling versus how you understand the plan,” as Young explains. “The plan is about movement, whereas the ceiling is about spatial definition. These are ideas about promenade and interaction that perhaps you could manifest only in a space like a crypto office.”