Nationality United States Role Architect Name Robert Jr. | Projects Bright 'n Green Occupation Architect | |
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Awards 15-time winner of SARA local and national awards, 10-time winner of local Brooklyn AIA awards, and AIA national awards. Practice Scarano Architects, PLLC Buildings 297 Driggs Ave, Brooklyn, NY | ||
Robert Michael Scarano Jr. is an American architect who works primarily in Brooklyn, New York City. In March 2010, Scarano was barred from submitting plans for new buildings to New York City's Department of Buildings.
Contents
- Life and career
- Works
- Awards and honors
- Loss of building department filing privileges
- Building codes and zoning
- Worker death
- References
Life and career
Born in Gravesend, Brooklyn, Scarano attended the City College of New York, where he received a Bachelor of Architecture, Bachelor of Science in Architecture and Environmental Design, and a certificate in engineering. He later studied at New York University and received certificates in construction management, building construction, real estate development and real estate finance.
He started his own firm, Scarano Architects PLLC, in Staten Island in 1985, the same year in which he became a Registered Architect in New York State. Prior to founding his firm, Scarano worked for HLW Architects, SLCE Architects, Liebman & Liebman Architects and Costas Kondylis Architects. Today, Scarano Associates has a staff of about 50, including designers from Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Israel, Russia and Ukraine. Based in DUMBO, Brooklyn, their office adjacent to the Manhattan Bridge features a glass and steel addition atop a hundred-year-old building.
Scarano is a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Society of American Registered Architects (SARA).
Works
At a community meeting on February 11, 2008, the developer announced that Scarano was no longer involved with the project, and the building would instead be designed by Armand Quadrini of KSQ Architects.
Awards and honors
In April 2005, Scarano received the first annual "Brooklyn Icon" award, presented by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz at a ceremony at Scarano’s office attended by over 100 builders, developers and architects. Since 2005, Scarano has earned over 30 construction awards.
Loss of building department filing privileges
In March 2010, Scarano lost his rights to submit new building plans to the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB). This ban is still in effect. The ruling came in response to a June 2008 DOB action alleging "false or misleading statements on applications submitted to the Buildings Department in connection with two new buildings in Brooklyn.". According to DOB, Scarano's filings deliberately misrepresented the size of his proposed buildings, which were larger than he was claiming in his filings.
In her March 2010 ruling, Judge Joan Salzman agreed with DOB, calling Scarano's filings “so deceptive that they call to mind out-and-out fraud.”
In response to the ruling, Scarano sued DOB, attempting to overturn a city statute that "can be used to bar an architect from filing for permits". The suit alleged that the statute was "unconstitutional because it lacked due process; it was poorly drafted with a "meager" standard; and could be applied arbitrarily". An appeals court upheld the ban in 2011, saying DOB could "no longer rely on (Scarano) to submit honest paperwork." Scarano said that he would explore his legal options in response.
This ban was the second time in four years that the NYC Department of Buildings brought charges against Scarano. In 2006, Scarano was brought before the City's Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings for alleged zoning violations. The allegations were mutually settled in August 2006 with the settlement specifying that it was "not an admission of guilt or liability" by Scarano and the DOB agreed to keep private "any information or documents that form the basis for the [department's] assertions and allegations."
Building codes and zoning
Under the New York City system of zoning, buildings are regulated for things such as height, floor area, setbacks, and number of dwelling units. These regulations vary by neighborhood and street.
Many of the buildings designed by Scarano’s firm are instantly recognizable for being much larger than neighboring buildings. This is often due to the double-height spaces and mezzanine levels commonly used on his residential projects to maximize building height, floor area, and lot coverage. Under the New York City building codes, mezzanines (defined in part as spaces with ceiling heights of less than five feet) are not included when calculating the square footage of a building, but it has been alleged that many of Scarano’s building plans classified habitable space as mezzanines.
Speaking with a reporter in April 2006, Scarano defended himself, saying:
If you’re allowed 60 percent lot coverage and 55 feet (17 m) in height and the allowable floor area is a 2.0 FAR and that gives you three-and-a-half floors, what do you do with the extra height? We pushed that into the living spaces, creating double-height units with mezzanines. And you want that space in the living room and dining room and maybe the main bedroom, but not in the other rooms (kitchens, baths, home office etc). And we were allowed to exclude the mezzanines from the floor area based on memorandums that were circulating in the 1980s.
Worker death
In March 2006, construction worker Anthony Duncan was killed at a Scarano-designed project under construction at 733 Ocean Parkway, Brooklyn, when a retaining wall gave way and the adjacent structure collapsed. This takes into consideration that on total, the city reported 29 fatal construction accidents from September 30, 2005 to September 30, 2006—a sharp rise from the number of construction deaths in the 2004–2005 year.