There are the characteristic New York buildings, as you know them from films and series: Narrow, high brick buildings, often also storage buildings, with external stairs, water tanks on the roofs, a caf or shop on the ground floor. The New York office has just such a building, a former masonry factory from the 1920s Worrell Yeung in Brooklyn, not far from the home arena of the Brooklyn Nets and the ODA apartment complex, renovated and redesigned.
In addition to the six-story, 3,500 square meter factory building, three adjacent buildings were also part of the revitalization project. The goal: a conversion into a versatile work space. Despite all the innovations, the building typology typical of the early 20th century should be retained. After all, according to the architect Max Worrell, the existing buildings were so steeped in history and overlaid with textures that his team primarily wanted to preserve and highlight the existing conditions and create space for new uses in this context.
The central element continues to be the factory in the middle of the property. In the south it is bordered by three one-story structures, which now house an art studio and a photo studio. Here the architects removed the walls that were added later and uncovered the original shop window openings, which now let in daylight again. The studio on the corner was also given a large upper floor made of glass blocks to bring in diffuse light during the day and to let it shine like a lantern in the evening. The exterior of all buildings was painted dark blue at street level so that they read like an ensemble.
The four buildings are connected by a green inner courtyard that was created by removing a roof. In addition, a garage to the left of the factory was removed and the room was designed into a garden by Michael van Valkenburgh Associates (New York) remodeled. Here, too, it was important to uncover the history of the place. The original yellow wooden gates visible from the street and the exterior brick walls have been preserved. The new benches are made of solid oak that was washed ashore on the east coast after storms.
Inside, the materials should reflect the former industrial character: floors made of concrete and checker plate, unfinished steel railings and doors. The brick walls were cleaned of old layers of paint, sealed and supplemented with uniform white walls. The wood of the old floor beams was processed into a conference table and other furniture. The grid of the glass block elements also appears in the steel floor, the window grilles and a lobby wall, all of them alluding to the aesthetics of traditional factory buildings and the warehouses of the nearby shipyard, which in the past had grilles in their sliding windows, tongues and ship docks, like that Jejon Yeung. (kat)
Photos: Naho Kubota
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