The West is a new apartment concept on the Hell’s Kitchen waterfront designed by Dutch studio Concrete, the architects behind CitizenM Hotels and Urby. Ahead of sales starting spring 2020, The West partnered with boutique agency Pandiscio Green to market this environmentally-conscious neighbourhood hub to young professional home buyers.
Amsterdam and New York-based creative production studio Ambassadors was brought in as a creative partner to help capture what makes The West unique in a short film, with an opportunity to work on the entire process from creative concept through to final colour grade.
Since The West was still in development at the time, rather than showing its impressive architectural amenities, Ambassadors focused on the industrial characteristics of Hell’s Kitchen and the artisanal craftsmanship and materials being used for the build. Shooting in Amsterdam, London, and New York over summer 2019, Ambassadors director Oscar Marmelstein and crew documented the passion of the makers at Concrete, Roord, Stonecycling and CBSK Ironstate, all companies using sustainable materials and with high attention to every detail.
“With Dutch architects, Dutch materials, and Dutch filmmakers all helping build something beautiful in America, there was also this nice pioneer kind of theme running through everything. Amsterdam to New Amsterdam. So The West is a new build, but it’s imbued with a little heritage too,” said director, Oscar Marmelstein.
Mike Green, creative director at Pandiscio Green, added: "The Ambassadors are dream collaborators. We started the conversation with a very loose creative brief and some tough time constraints and ended up with a beautiful film that told the story of the project through the eyes of its creators. The process was very organised and incredibly smooth despite shooting in multiple international locations. Looking forward to future collaborations."