There is no such thing as nothing. The area between stars is filled with dust and gas, the gaps between atoms filled with electromagnetic fields, and, even in a true vacuum, gravity remains. It’s easy to forget, but Andrew Kotchen remembers. “In our practice, we often talk about the space between space,” he says. “The space between architecture and interior design, the space between materials, the space between the elements.”
Nowhere is this more apparent than in his own recently completed Palm Beach vacation home. “This apartment has that everywhere,” adds the founding principal of New York–based architectural firm Workshop/APD. “It’s in the way everything comes together, from the most micro thing to the larger macro thing.”
The 1,500-square-foot unit, which serves as a city reprieve for Kotchen, his wife, and two children, sits within a historic modernist building along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. When he purchased it in 2020, it represented everything he’d been looking for in a second home: on the beach, inside an architecturally unique property, and, more than anything, a total wreck. “That’s what I wanted, something that needed work,” he says.
And work it took. Over 14 months—partly set back because of COVID restrictions—Kotchen and his team gutted the entire end unit down to concrete, then slowly built it back up. “The unique thing about this building is that there are no two parallel walls in the space, because it’s an S-shaped building,” he explains. The design—though intended to be modern, coastal, and clean—was conceived to distort these nonparallel conditions and create comfortable living areas that flow seamlessly from one to the next.
Custom millwork on the floors, doors, and paneling stabilizes the space, while subtle curves—seen everywhere from the unit’s walls to the furniture’s silhouettes—peak and crest. “It was really about smoothing over the edges,” Kotchen adds. “You’ll notice everything is rounded, everything is soft, and every transition flows into one another.” Like stars and sky, like sand and sea.
The home, while intended for rest, also serves as a place to experiment with Workshop’s latest offering—furniture. “If my home isn’t going to be a laboratory for it, then whose is?” Kotchen questions. “It’s up to us to use our homes to test things out and make sure they feel right.” Roughly half of the pieces in the apartment come from the recently launched Workshop Collection, a furniture and product line from the design firm.
This home, with its organic shapes and slanting lines, allowed the designers to dial into a variety of forms and profiles in a pared-down way that celebrates that never-actually-empty space of the unit. “Whether it’s the sofa and the console table behind it, or the dining table and Entwine credenza piece, there’s a coming together of materiality, connection, and that space between,” Kotchen says, “And that is what we are really proud of.”
Now settled, the cozy hideaway has become the perfect family escape for the four of them. Kotchen’s happy place is anywhere there is water, and the expansive views of the ocean keep him grounded like no other. “This home is part of the embodiment of my career,” he says. “If you have the ability to create a home in a place that you love, and a home that represents who you are in its deepest way, that’s a pretty special place to get to.”