Greenpoint Landing Block D will be a catalyst in the transformation of the Greenpoint waterfront from a post-industrial edge—formerly home to low warehouses, rope factories and parking lots—to a new neighborhood. Located at the northern-most tip of Brooklyn, the site will be a gateway to the neighborhood beyond and have a unique impact on the Brooklyn skyline.
The new development will extend Eagle Street and Dupont Street to meet a new waterfront esplanade. Between these new connections to the East River, two residential towers rise together on a trapezoidal site cut by the angle of the shoreline.
Like two dancers, the 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 and beyond. Its partner steps back from the waterfront to create a series of large terraces, widening toward the ground and the new waterfront park to the North. A ziggurat and its inverse, the pair are intimately linked by the void between them.
Rather than being lifted on a monolithic base or standing in isolation, the towers are framed by two lower volumes on the opposite corners of the block, creating a continuous edge around the block. Along this edge, subtle folds and shifts mark entries and define a smaller grain reminiscent of the often-variegated street edge conditions within Greenpoint.
The towers and podium are clad with precast concrete panels surrounding large windows that play on a traditional punched window façade while providing a lightness and porosity to the massing. Much like the buildings’ forms, the precast panels are carved by a series of angled planes. The carved faces react dynamically to the movement of the sun throughout the day. This expression changes orientation with each block (vertical, horizontal and diagonal), dividing the tower into a finer scale.
Echoing Greenpoint’s pastoral origins as a neighborhood of family farms, two levels of green space open up to the waterfront. Terraces are framed by a collection of common spaces and amenities. Above them, the towers are linked by a bridge programmed with a pool and fitness center looking over the Manhattan skyline.
Altogether, Greenpoint Landing aims to establish a platform for a new kind of living: connecting past and future, indoor and outdoor, urban streetscape and waterfront.
© OMA
