LOT-EK’s best-known rooftop project is the Guzman Penthouse in midtown New York. Constructed partly from a reclaimed truck container, it is an iconic image of Modernism returned to its industrial roots mixed with the spirit of Post-Modern reappropriation and New York’s famously bohemian loft culture. The project included extensive technological gadgets, most notably a vertically placed video monitor connected to a surveillance camera with a permanent view of the Empire State Building – a view of a view.

Klein Penthouse (unbuilt) LOT-EK

The firm’s Klein Penthouse was an unbuilt concept for a photographer with a site in New York’s Meat Packing District. Set atop the large flat expanse of a relatively low-rise building, the project again took the shipping container as the central architectural element. On this occasion, however, rather than inserting the container into an existing building, the rooftop was to be reconfigured to reflect the container’s decidedly nonstatic origins.

The roofscape was to be laid out with six lanes, mimicking a parking lot. White kerbs separated each lane, and the roofing membrane was composed of black outdoor rubber granules. Three irregularly spaced zones – one each of grass, pebbles and water – formed the landscaping, while the accommodation took the shape of an 8 meters (26 foot) long truck container connected directly to the photographer’s studio on the floor below.