TRA studio’s workplace

Design and art studio: a colorful life

TRA studio architecture, West Broadway, SoHo, NYC

TRA studio architecture, Walker Street, Tribeca, NYC

TRA studio architecture, Franklin Street, Tribeca, NYC

TRA studio architecture, 1 Maiden Lane, NYC

TRA studio architecture, Walker Street

TRA studio architecture, Franklin Street

TRA Studio architecture studios

“ Roiatti and Traboscia’s loft is a seamless fusion of life and work”, ”both precise eclectic modern and warm, it is clear that Roiatti and Traboscia’s style has been honed to perfection after years together on the job and at home” “The TRA office,…, has many similar design elements”. Design Bureau Magazine, A colorful life, by Nalina Moses

 Caterina, an architect from Venice. and Bob, an “environmental”  designer and artist, met while at Vignelli Associates, with whom they still collaborate. Their practice , which works in the space in between ART and architecture, (as summarized by their logo, TRA, Latin for  “in the midst of”), finds its arena mostly in the downtown districts, where the couple lives and works. In 1995  they moved their studio in a live-work SoHo loft, (TRAstudio1.   Their multi-disciplinary design practice, which took the front half of the space, soon grew in size and both the painting and the design studios were moved nearby first to Walker Street and presently to a floor-thru space on Franklin Street. Their studio is currently located in a floor through loft at 1 Maiden Lane, in the Financial District.

Our studio is  a representation of the way we work, the open space is characterized only by non-prescriptive tables of various sizes, mostly custom designed. The loose organization of the landscape furniture, whose use often creatively changes several times during the course of the day, clearly illustrate the collaborative process.

The various "tables", include the main conference table , which is centrally located and technologically equipped, the 30’ long custom table, ( based on the French communal dining table model), the informal meeting table for four, the vintage Plattner lunch table which is also often used for private meetings. A large number of assorted chairs allows anybody to easily work with the others, transforming a single station to a collaborative one.

The   comfortable aura, the luminous, enthusiastic, layered space, the  dynamic power of color and the “lightness of  order” of their studio is  typical of both of TRA’s interiors and of Robert Traboscia’s paintings, which are routinely exhibited as in a true artist’s loft.

The minimalist furniture is made out of Trespa, a recycled material widely used for exterior vertical siding, a trademark of TRA’s interiors.

The stark industrial yet refined finishes, together with Robert Traboscia’s paintings and TRA’s models and renderings displayed throughout, describe the TRA’s aesthetic.

Press: 

Design Bureau Magazine,

A colorful life, by Nalina Moses, January February 2012