Brooklyn, New York, USA
For the Bushwick Generator, Matthias Hollwich of HWKN wanted to create an exemplary multifaceted office campus that was as outwardly energetic as the most disruptive start-up.
The new vertical office campus is destined to rise 200 feet above the largely low-slung and industrial northern Brooklyn landscape while bringing 400,000 square feet of new workspace to the area.
A landscaped outdoor terrace by Land Collective activates the area where the rectangular base meets the vertical gem, offering an area that can serve as a breakout space, an informal meeting area, or a venue for public events.
Hollwich calls the design an “antithesis of the sterile Silicon Valley office park.”
Located just two blocks from the L Train-serviced Morgan Avenue subway station, The Generator truly is a campus; the architects preserved the light-industrial buildings that existed on the site as part of the foundation and created a vertical icon to serve as a wayfinding structure and define an unforgettable experience for all.
The Generator is an amalgam of community, novelty, and authenticity. Throughout the building there are spaces for public programming to draw in the local community. The floorplates are designed to host businesses at multiple scales, from nascent start-ups, makers, and growth phase companies, allowing tenants to mix in a lively, diverse commercial community.
Designed like a jewel-like brick volume sitting on top a rectangular three-story base, the building incorporates existing light-industrial buildings at the site as a new foundation.
“By maintaining and building atop the existing urban fabric, The Generator injects new life into the context while preserving the distinctive grit that lends the area its character and edge”, states Hollwich.
“The result is a new icon for Bushwick that reimagines the neighborhood’s traditional forms and materials in forward-looking geometries, embracing the area’s heritage while paving the way for its future.”
Further opening itself up to the street-level activity, a corner of the base has also been shaved off to allow for a soaring triangular glass entrance portal that complements the ten-story multifaceted “vertical jewel” above.
The expected completion date is 2023.
Architects: HWKN
Landscape Architects: Land Collective
Client: The Bushwick Generator
