The Smile
Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) · New York, United States · 2020
The Smile is a residential building in East Harlem whose curved massing gives the project its name. The building bends gently along the street, creating a distinctive facade and allowing the plan to mediate between neighborhood scale, apartment layouts, and views. Its cladding and repetitive windows create a strong graphic identity, while the project includes shared amenities and ground-level urban presence. Compared with BIG’s more dramatic skyline projects, The Smile is valuable as an example of how the office’s formal language can be adapted to a mid-rise New York context. It is especially interesting for visitors studying how contemporary residential architecture can create memorability without relying on height alone.