THE VOYEURISTIC ARCHITECTS OF DESIRE - BOND’S FIRE ISLAND PINES FANTASY
Interview by Sarah Len
Photography by Izack Morales
The sea breeze is a reminder to breathe. New York City has been left behind, and the Fire Island Pines are ahead as I board the Long Island ferry to visit Daniel Rauchwerger and Noam Dvir at their house in the historic oasis that has long been a respite for the chaos of the city. It takes about 20 minutes to get to Fire Island from the Sayville ferry station, each minute a welcome recalibration as city lights, sounds, and cars are left behind. In this pocket of Long Island time operates of its own accord, and as I make my way on foot through the wooden pathways that are lined with tall grass, uniform-like houses with weathered wood blending into the serene surroundings, I – like many others long before me – immediately fall in love with this particular place.
It was over 10 years ago that Noam and Daniel first started coming to this island. Since that first visit the duo, professionally known as the design maverick studio BoND (which stands for Bureau of Noam and Daniel), returned again and again, amassing work giving fresh life to five of the 600 historic houses on the car-less hamlet and having six more projects in development, before buying an old house and turning it into a refuge of their own, a place to disappear into away from the bustle of their Flatiron office. It’s this house that I now walk up to, first noticing a famous piece of their property – a large window that points directly at a urinal surrounded by yellow tiles that elicit a public restroom in Berlin. Like public restrooms, the Fire Island Pines has long been a safe place of encounter for the queer community – the remoteness and chillness of the island the perfect context for self-expression, to let loose without worrying about the consequences of freedom. Amongst its legacy of artists, authors, and performers who have adopted the Pines as a haven is Truman Capote, where he wrote his classic “Breakfast At Tiffany’s.”
Parties, voyeurism, nudity, and chosen family are all elements that Noam and Daniel took into consideration when restoring their house. “Our house…is a study in voyeurism. The layout allows views into and through the different rooms.” Noam tells me as we weave through the place, pointing out the indoor window that allows a peek from the living room into the primary bedroom. “You can stand in one corner of the house and see all the way to the other side.” The motif of gathering is also apparent in considerations like having a day-bed in the living room as opposed to a couch, on top of which a blanket with a cowboy print by Carne Bollente in collaboration with the Tom of Finland Foundation lies. Books and artwork are strewn through the house, many by queer artists, facilitating creativity and rest, while the kitchen, where we end up talking, is considered the nucleus of the gathering. Cocooned by conversation, food, wine, and, of course, a little gossip, we discuss their home, work, and the importance of queer spaces.

Materia: Your practice has been focused on the intersection of queerness and architecture. What role do you believe identity plays in how we inhabit space?
ND: Identity is everything – if there isn’t one, what are we here for?
For us, the question of a queer agenda as part of our identity as an office – and as a shaping element of the way we think about spaces – has always been a key factor. The majority of our client base is LGBTQ+, and typically younger in age. Many times, we see that people want to work with someone who shares the same view as them, so they can be open when dreaming about their project, and where there are no taboos regarding sexuality and openness.
DR: Whether we get asked to or not, we try to deploy the alternative way of thinking that defines queer thought onto space.
Materia: How have heteronormative beliefs shaped the world we live in today in terms of architecture?
DR: Broadly speaking, the built environment embodies the hierarchies that its designers (and clients) believe in. In many cultural spaces, for instance, there is a hierarchy of front vs. back of house, or audience and staff. In residential design, it’s more like “master” and “guest”, as well as parents vs. kids, and then spaces that are traditionally masculine or feminine. In most typical homes the primary is monitoring the circulation into the guest / secondary rooms. In today’s shifting climate, these boundaries are completely rejected, and it seems like an antiquated discussion to say that the binary nature of a home should be canceled. But to be honest, this is all pretty new – even in our childhood in the 1990s, the study was definitely dad’s room, and the kitchen belonged to mom.

“…we dedicated a room to a urinal – which can be seen as a fetish, but also as an extremely functional space.“
– Daniel Rauchwerger
Materia: Can we discuss some of the design moments you might find in a non-nuclear family home?
ND: The non-nuclear family stems from something that a lot of queer people develop on their own: the idea of a chosen family made up of their best friends. Especially in New York, which is a city that most people have immigrated to from somewhere, you find yourself growing new roots and creating strong bonds with friends. Living here through COVID, lots of our close friends really transformed into feeling like our family. In the summer, we share our Fire Island house with our friends, and so we spent lots of time considering how these ideas translate directly into the design of the house. One of the main themes we like to interrogate is monitoring and control. In a non-nuclear family home, there shouldn’t really be a hierarchy or feeling of monitoring, and a rather democratic approach to public areas (living room, dining, kitchen, outdoor space).
Materia: When creating your home on Fire Island what were some of the conversations you two had about how you wanted to approach the design?
DR: The starting point was mostly site-specific, a reaction to the house we bought and its condition. We felt like we couldn’t see the original beach cabin that it was built as, in the 60s… all that simple, original architecture was ruined by a 90s renovation. So we talked a lot about how to reintroduce the simplicity, to make it less suburban.
On top of that, we wanted to bring in some sense of humor, some cheekiness, and some fresh material choices. We came up with a series of ideas like the windowed bedroom and the urinal room. These are peppered into the design, but most of all, it was designed to feel like a home where our friends and us would have memorable summers together.
“For us, the question of a queer agenda as part of our identity as an office – and as a shaping element of the way we think about spaces – has always been a key factor. The majority of our client base is LGBTQ+, and typically younger in age. Many times, we see that people want to work with someone who shares the same view as them, so they can be open when dreaming about their project, and where there are no taboos regarding sexuality and openness.“
– Noam Dvir
Materia: And how do you design for desire?
DR: Desire as a concept is super subjective, but it can be distilled in different ways. I think one central tool we use is sight lines and voyeurism. In example, we opened a window between our bedroom and kitchen. Similarly, we dedicated a room to a urinal – which can be seen as a fetish, but also as an extremely functional space. It comes from the thought that there’s nothing to hide, there is no no-go between friends. And so rather than hide it, we try to make it explicit and expressive.
Materia: Tell us more about a recent project that embodies this design approach.
ND: We’re currently working on our 6th project in Fire Island Pines; each one of these has a slightly different definition of these themes. There are only 600 homes in this community so we have worked on 1% percent of the entire building stock – that’s really exciting since we can cultivate a voice and attitude, but also humbling as we are tasked with safekeeping the local values, ideas and aesthetic heritage.
Our house in the Pines, for example, is a study in voyeurism. The layout allows views into and through the different rooms. When stepping up from the gate to the main entry, you can see directly into the powder room (and the urinal), through the kitchen into the garden, and directly into the guest bedroom downstairs. The primary bedroom is separated from the main communal space by panes of fixed glass and a clearstory. You can stand in one corner of the house and see all the way to the other side.
We employed similar strategies in some of our other projects in the Pines. For a client who asked for a “sex shower” we created a large wet room with high glass orange neon tiles and two shower heads.
In another recent project we created exterior entries to all bedrooms, supplementing the interior circulation and allowing users to enter their bedrooms with an additional layer of privacy.

“The non-nuclear family stems from something that a lot of queer people develop on their own: the idea of a chosen family made up of their best friends. Especially in New York, which is a city that most people have immigrated to from somewhere, you find yourself growing new roots and creating strong bonds with friends.”
– Noam Dvir
Materia: As a leading studio shaping the architectural landscape of Fire Island, what impact do you hope to have on the island and what legacy do you hope to leave behind?
DR: Our work here comes from a deep appreciation of the landscape, the modernist architecture, and the people that are part of this place. It’s a fragile ecosystem, almost a miracle that it exists, on so many levels… social, sexual, geographic… all we can do is preserve what we can to ensure that it can be enjoyed for generations to come.
Keep building innovative houses that are sustainable, experimental, contextual, and thought-provoking in their approach to spending time with friends. And we try to convince clients that they don’t need to have too many things here, to make the culture less materialistic, less wasteful, more intentional.
Learn more about BoND and their studio located in Flatiron, New York.
