On the quiet persistence of plaster.
In the townhouses of our portfolio, plasterwork is not ornament — it is the structure's memory. A note from the office on what we preserve, and why.
A building’s plaster is the first thing to crack and the last thing anyone thinks about. We would like to make an argument for thinking about it.
In the townhouses of our portfolio — some of them standing since the 1870s, most of them since the 1890s or the opening decades of the 20th century — the plaster is not the decorative finish over the structure. It is, in a practical sense, part of the structure. The lath behind it holds the plaster to the joists; the plaster, in turn, stiffens the lath. Together they do work that drywall, installed later over the same joists, will never do.
This is one reason a well-plastered wall still sounds right when you knock on it, and a drywalled wall sounds like cardboard. It is the reason a plaster ceiling at 11 feet — tall enough to accept the ornament it frequently carries — does not vibrate when the residents above it move. It is the reason an original cornice, once repaired, will last another hundred years.
What we do, as a firm, when we find plasterwork worth preserving, is: we preserve it. We do not replace it with drywall. We do not paint over the decorative runs. We do not, when renovating a kitchen, cut the plaster to bring the ceiling down two inches to accommodate a modern light fixture; we instead find the light fixture that accommodates the ceiling.
This is a policy that costs money in the short run and saves it over decades. It is also, in our judgement, what luxury residential management actually means.
— The Office