Timber in the City Competition

Urban Landscape brooklyn

manhattan

A large and comprehensive project like Timber in the City presents many challenges and carries with it a large amount of responsibility. Further complicating matters is the fact that this building should change how people think about wooden buildings. We have the technology required to achieve this, now it is time to create demand for this type of building. At the core of what I am striving for with this project is to demonstrate how to build with timber material we can build buildings which belong to the city. In the case of Red Hook a building which will initiate urban quality around itself.

Ground Floor

10th Floor

wood d showroom o

wood d production c area e

storage r area e main production u area r

bike repair p shop loading g dock

protected c bike parking a

digital t production u a area digital showroom o

bike showroom h bike rental e

Underground Floor

parking

mech me chan anic ical al

m ch me c anicall

Program Diagram

RESIDENTIAL

Longitudinal Section

CAFFÉ

WOOD SHOWROOM

PARKING

WOOD WOOD

PARKING

PRODUCTION AREA

PARKING

LOBBY

MECHANICAL

Roof is offering views as well as light to the manufacturing areas

Diagram of Base Structure

Bike and Skate oval on the roof

Glulam beam shape influenced by the structural moment

3D detail section through stairstepped roof with skylights

Red Hook is an area which is beginning to revive and is slowly becoming a lively area. From an abandoned harbor area it is changing to be a destination for artists. These artists are being pushed out from upper Brooklyn because of increasingly high rent. Hopefully in the near future it will become a good place for living for other people as well. As a part of the Brooklyn waterfront it is inevitable that this area will be a connectionbetween Brooklyn waterfront parks and Red Hook’s large recreation area. This has already started with Louis Valentino Park and Pier 44 Waterfront Garden. Continuing with the Beard Street pier, it will become a strip of parks along the Brooklyn waterfront. Due to the size of this park area there will be a need for transportation suitable to this park’s features, which can be met by bikes. Red Hook already has a decent amount of bike paths, but there is a missing segment along Beard Street, which I want to lead through my site-specifically on the roof of my proposed design. The roof will not just serve as a bike path, but as an extension of the waterfront park areas, with views towards Manhattan Island. A great inspiration for me were the Spanish Steps in Rome, which I’ll be referring to for the shape of my roof.

Typical Section through stairstepped roof

Stairs curving to blend between different heights

Blending of the bike path to pedestrian stairs

Screen facade reducing heat gain

Stac cking modules as logs

Shifting unit modules to create balconies m

Originaly fluid tower coresponding with the overall landscape,

was divided to modules 4 m wide

and widened towards the top to create more space for bigger appartments

Since the project is in New York, a very economically orientated city where every piece of land is expensive, it is important to use the maximum potential of the site. The actual shaping of building mass for me began as a typical city block, which is present in the adjacent Brooklyn neighborhoods cut off from Red Hook by just the Gowanus Expressway. By using the “Spanish steps” feature as a skylight between each step, I am able to use the whole site and still have natural daylight in every manufacturing area as well.

With timber as the main structural material there th were two major challenges to deal with: great vertical loads from the tower with and long spans in the production area.

According to the program the residential Acco towe tower is supposed to have a lot of small units and just a couple of large units. With unit for flexibility this means a no requirement r lot o of walls, which are suitable to be used as load bearing walls, made of 5 layer CLT pane panels. For the long span above the production areas, I am using glue laminatprod which will fit perfectly under the ed beams b fluid shape of the roofscape. The Spanish step steps on my roof will then continue as a shad shading façade and cover the south façade of m my residential tower.

Typical Tower Floor plan