Looking at New York from Brooklyn. Eagle + West in Greenpoint by OMA / Jason Long
08/12/2022.
Greenpoint Landing [Brooklyn - NY] USA
metalocus, ANDRÉS BLANCO
metalocus, ANDRÉS BLANCO
Project description by OMA / Jason Long
Greenpoint lies at the northernmost tip of Brooklyn where Newtown Creek meets the East River. The neighborhood—sometimes called “Little Poland”—has historically consisted of low-rise townhouses with industry at its waterfront edges. The industrial border, which included shipbuilding, rope-making, and more toxic activities such as petroleum refinement, cut the neighborhood off from the East River.
As part of a sweeping rezoning of both Greenpoint and Williamsburg in 2005, our site and blocks to the north and south were identified as an area for new residential density—introducing pairs of thirty- and forty-story towers to include market-rate and affordable housing (30 percent of units to be affordable). In exchange, this new development would open access to and along the East River. Our site sits at the conjunction of Greenpoint’s primary grid and a secondary grid that extends perpendicular to Newtown Creek. This hinge point provides panoramic views of Manhattan, but also cuts the western end of the site, creating a trapezoidal outline and constraining the size of the block. Our challenge was to fit the desired amount of housing into a site and a neighborhood that both seemed too small to accommodate it.
The zoning allowed for a maximum floor plate of 11,000 square feet. We quickly found that this scale and required setbacks would result in only 40 feet of separation between our two towers—an uncomfortable proximity that undermined the potential of the site and would create a wall from the neighborhood. We began by reducing their footprints to allow for 60 feet of open space, more akin to the scale of a typical street. We could then strategically expand and contract the towers for zones of maximum efficiency within each.
Eagle + West in Greenpoint by OMA. Photograph by Jason O_Rear.
The two towers simultaneously lean into and away from one another. The taller tower widens toward the east as it rises, maximizing views and creating a dramatic face to the neighborhood. The shorter tower, a fraternal twin, widens toward the ground to face a new waterfront park to the north. The two towers are shaped to create terraces and overhangs that emphatically link them together as if they were broken apart from a single block. A ziggurat and its inverse, the pair are distinct yet intimately connected by the void between them. The stepped forms of the towers and the articulation of their facades mediate the inevitable contrast in scale between the two towers and the existing neighborhood. The stepping divides the tower into seven- to eight-story blocks that echo the scale of the neighboring buildings. The facade reinforces this subdivision.
While The Avery’s glass curtain wall was rising in San Francisco, our proposal here sought to embrace solidity. Incorporating large 8-foot-by-8-foot windows into a grid of precast concrete maintains expansive views while making the complex negotiations between unit interiors and façade easier to accommodate. The solidity also creates a set of buildings that emerge more seamlessly from the neighborhood. Much like the shingled facades seen on Greenpoint’s townhouses, the precast panels are carved by a series of angled planes. The shingling of each “block” of the tower alternates in orientation to emphasize the finer scale of the towers’ mass—a dynamic relief that reacts to the movement of the sun.
Eagle + West in Greenpoint by OMA. Photograph by Jason O_Rear.
Waterfront towers typically try to both maximize the views to the water and establish a distinct, even iconic frontage within the skyline. Too often that means turning away from the neighborhood, creating a “back” side, and disengaging the tower from its context. Here, a set of cantilevers—extending the building 48 feet from its base—faces east toward Greenpoint and presents our most dramatic facade to the neighborhood.
Echoing Greenpoint’s pastoral origins as a neighborhood of family farms, two levels of green space open to the waterfront. Terraces are framed by a collection of common spaces. Above them, the towers are linked by an amenity bridge looking over the Manhattan skyline. Altogether, Greenpoint Landing aims to be a platform for living: connecting past and future, indoor and outdoor, urban streetscape and waterfront.
Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is a leading international partnership practicing architecture, urbanism, and cultural analysis. OMA's buildings and masterplans around the world insist on intelligent forms while inventing new possibilities for content and everyday use. OMA is led by ten partners – Rem Koolhaas, Ellen van Loon, Reinier de Graaf, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, David Gianotten, Chris van Duijn, Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Jason Long and Michael Kokora – and maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Beijing, Hong Kong, Doha and Dubai.
Responsible for OMA’s operations in America, OMA New York was established in 2001 and has since overseen the successful completion of several buildings across the country including Milstein Hall at Cornell University (2011); the Wyly Theater in Dallas (2009); the Seattle Central Library (2004); the IIT Campus Center in Chicago (2003); and Prada’s Epicenter in New York (2001). The office is currently overseeing the construction of three cultural projects, including the Musée National des Beaux-arts du Québec and the Faena Arts District in Miami Beach – both scheduled for completion in 2016 – as well as a studio expansion for artist Cai Guo Qiang in New York. The New York office has most recently been commissioned to design a number of residential towers in San Francisco, New York, and Miami, as well as two projects in Los Angeles; the Plaza at Santa Monica, a mixed use complex in Los Angeles, and the Wilshire Boulevard Temple.
OMA New York’s ongoing engagements with urban conditions around the world include a new civic center in Bogota, Colombia; a post-Hurricane Sandy, urban water strategy for New Jersey; the 11th Street Bridge Park and RFK Stadium-Armory Campus Masterplan in Washington, DC; and a food hub in West Louisville, Kentucky.
Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an international practice operating within the traditional boundaries of architecture and urbanism. AMO, a research and design studio, applies architectural thinking to domains beyond. OMA is led by eight partners – Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van Loon, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, Jason Long, and Managing Partner-Architect David Gianotten – and maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha, and Australia. OMA-designed buildings currently under construction are the renovation of Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin, The Factory in Manchester, Hangzhou Prism, the CMG Times Center in Shenzhen and the Simone Veil Bridge in Bordeaux.
OMA’s completed projects include Taipei Performing Arts Centre (2022), Audrey Irmas Pavilion in Los Angeles (2020), Norra Tornen in Stockholm (2020), Axel Springer Campus in Berlin (2020), MEETT Toulouse Exhibition and Convention Centre (2020), Galleria in Gwanggyo (2020), WA Museum Boola Bardip (2020), nhow RAI Hotel in Amsterdam (2020), a new building for Brighton College (2020), and Potato Head Studios in Bali (2020). Earlier buildings include Fondazione Prada in Milan (2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow (2015), De Rotterdam (2013), CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2012), Casa da Música in Porto (2005), and the Seattle Central Library (2004).
AMO often works in parallel with OMA's clients to fertilize architecture with intelligence from this array of disciplines. This is the case with Prada: AMO's research into identity, in-store technology, and new possibilities of content-production in fashion helped generate OMA's architectural designs for new Prada epicenter stores in New York and Los Angeles. In 2004, AMO was commissioned by the European Union to study its visual communication, and designed a colored "barcode" flag, combining the flags of all member states, which was used during the Austrian presidency of the EU. AMO has worked with Universal Studios, Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, Heineken, Ikea, Condé Nast, Harvard University and the Hermitage. It has produced Countryside: The Future, a research exhibited at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; exhibitions at the Venice Architecture Biennale, including Public Works (2012), Cronocaos (2010), and The Gulf (2006); and for Fondazione Prada, including When Attitudes Become Form (2012) and Serial and Portable Classics (2015). AMO, with Harvard University, was responsible for the research and curation of the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale and its publication Elements. Other notable projects are Roadmap 2050, a plan for a Europe-wide renewable energy grid; Project Japan, a 720-page book on the Metabolism architecture movement (Taschen, 2010); and the educational program of Strelka Institute in Moscow.