Domino Site E, Brooklyn NY

Situation 

Two Trees Management Company is not the typical hard-nosed, no-nonsense developer you might expect to find in New York City. The guiding philosophy of this $4B family firm, which manages 2,000 apartment units and 3 million square feet of commercial space, is that "people prosper when neighborhoods bloom," and that furthermore, "developers and property-owners must play a fundamental role in cultivating livable streetscapes."

In 2012, Two Trees purchased the one hundred fifty year old decommissioned Domino Sugar factory and site along the East River, just across from Manhattan›s Lower East Side. Their intent was to develop a series of residential and commercial buildings that would use modern design techniques to hearken back to the historic, industrial past of the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, thus creating a vibrant neighborhood community.

Solution 

To bring Two Trees vision to life, the building was enveloped by a façade of perforated panels. These were fabricated from raw copper and zinc sourced from Bulgaria and France, which are attached to the building's exterior walls by Nvelopes NV3 hidden-fastening system.

Per Two Trees architect and project manager, Mark Dwyer, the entire building was designed by New York based SHoP Architects and was modelled using 3D GPS. Every panel, bracket, and rail of this bespoke façade system, was mapped to a specific location on the building. The panels came together to create a cascading visual effect while also having a smooth vertical plane, where the panels were plumb with one another.

One hundred years from now, when the now brilliant zinc and copper façade panels age, similar to the patina of the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, the NV3 system will still be supporting the panels that have seen generations of people prosper in a blooming neighborhood. 

Project highlights

Architect
SHoP Architects- New York

Main contractor
PG New York

Location
Brooklyn, NY

Product Used
The NVELOPE NV3 system

Download
Domino Case Study Download.pdf

Project Value
$200 Million