A second year project, this house was sited on the roof of Laurie Hawkinson and Henry Smith-Miller’s residence at the crossroads of Mercer and Howard Streets in New York City. As in other projects, Pellino wanted to explore the theme of the new American family (the clients were two women in a committed relationship). Of the project Pellino writes: "At the time, certain designers were using very heavy, patinated industrial materials such as cast iron plates, cor-ten steel, etc. in their work. . . I scoured SoHo to find contextual materials that could be used in this building, coming up with diamond-plate steel of various patterns (hence the charcoal rubbings) and bullet glass used in vault lights. At first I had planned to make the building a kind of projector from which films would be projected onto a screen set on a rooftop across the street. The project did not gel until I envisioned the structure as a kind of brutal tower silhouetted against the western sky strongly visible from the axis of Howard Street. It ultimately became an introverted building in which the contemplation that filmmaking requires would be embodied."