Developer Ralph Zucker, president of Somerset Development, is redeveloping Holmdel, New Jersey's Bell Labs into a mixed-use, “metroburb,” a concept he defines as a “metropolis in suburbia.”
Zucker says, “One of the things that Saarinen did well is he was able to create the feeling of [there being] rooms within rooms without walls.” Bell Works' designers sought to reproduce that quality in the living area with a rug inspired by Josef Albers’ “Study for Homage to the Square: Departing in Yellow,” and replacing solid interior walls with glass, CityLab reports.
“Life isn’t just in the cities, people actually live in the suburbs and some cool people live in the suburbs,” he says. “When we walked [into Bell Labs], because of my New Urbanist tendencies, I saw a pedestrian street. I thought this could be amazing. [Saarinen] created these quarter-of-a-mile city blocks and that has allowed us to retrofit it almost as if it was designed that way on purpose.”
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