Project Overview
Greenpoint Landing’s Block D, now leasing as “Eagle + West,” is the latest development to be built along the Brooklyn, N.Y., waterfront. Two towers house 745 residential units with 42,000 ft² of amenities that form a loop at the podium base. Architectural precast concrete panels with 8 × 8 ft windows clad the towers and feature angled planes that change orientation with each block of setbacks and cantilevers.
The cantilevers offer an element of drama to the buildings. By adding a series of stepped cantilevers to the 40-story tower and cutting the 30-story tower back in the opposite direction, the project takes advantage of both the new waterfront esplanade and views across the East River to Manhattan. “The result is almost like a single block that’s split into two,” says Jason Long, a partner at OMA Architects. “By extending the bottom of the lower tower, we accentuate the park frontage and then for the taller tower, you get the city views.” The skyline created by the residential towers is striking because the towers simultaneously lean into and away from one another. Long describes the towers as “a ziggurat and its inverse—carefully calibrated to one another and defined by the space between them.”
The stepping divides the towers into seven- to eight-story blocks that echo the scale of the neighboring buildings. The facade reinforces this subdivision through the use of a grid of precast concrete panels, which are carved by angled planes alternating in orientation block by block, creating a dynamic relief that reacts to the sun’s movement.
One feature of the cutting-edge architecture is the unusual facade. While glass curtainwall is common along waterfront properties, the project team embraced solidity by using a grid of precast concrete and large windows. Much like the shingled facades seen on neighborhood townhouses, the structure’s facade employs rotating, 2-in.-deep shingles on the precast concrete panels to reinforce distinctions in tower blocks, massing shifts, and building separations. To create a unique facade shingle at the notches, the design team combined two typical shingle orientations to make a “fish scale” pattern. There are acute angles at cantilevers and corners.
Reshaping the Brooklyn Waterfront
Greenpoint Landing in Brooklyn, N.Y., has been transformed from what was long ago an industrial area to a residential enclave. The new residential complex is part of the transformation into an open, accessible, and continuous waterfront neighborhood. Eagle + West—an assembly of two towers, a seven-story building, a series of amenities, and open space—adds 745 total units of market-rate and affordable housing, and 30,000 ft² of new public space to Greenpoint Landing. Located on the northernmost tip of Brooklyn on the East River shoreline, Eagle + West offers living space with abundant natural light. The cantilevered towers maximize views of Manhattan skyline while also creating a solid sense of privacy. |