OMA in Brooklyn

Greenpoint Landing Block D, which consists of two residential towers with 745 rental apartments (30% of them affordable) sitting atop a podium with parking and retail, is the first OMA building in Brooklyn. Developed by Brookfield Properties and Park Tower Group, the project is designed by OMA New York's Jason Long.

Clearly the most distinctive aspect of Long's design is the way the two towers relate to each other: one leans out and one steps back with the same profile, as if the two towers were chiseled or broken off from a larger rectilinear slab. Long uses the terms "ziggurat and its inverse" to describe the towers, which together "frame a new view of Greenpoint and new vista from the neighborhood to Manhattan."

The massing of the towers, as explained in the above diagram, takes into account views from all of the 745 units and the creation of outdoor space for a select few of them. Yet it also recalls the stepping of 23 East 22nd Street, an unbuilt 2007 design by Rem Koolhaas for a residential tower near Madison Square Park. With the "ziggurat and its inverse" set to start construction this year, their facades have been developed beyond the schematic: each level, as illustrated below, will be covered in precast panels carved with planes at different angles, meant to "react dynamically to the movement of the sun throughout the day."

The new towers were designed by Jason Long (OMA) with project architects Yusef Ali Dennis and Christine Yoon, in collaboration with Beyer Blinder Belle (Executive Architect), Marmol Radziner (Interior Design/Building Landscape) and James Corner Field Operations (Waterfront Landscape). Construction is expected to begin this summer.