DOCK 72. BROOKLYN

CLIENT: Boston Properties / Rudin Development SCOPE OF WORK: Architecture SIZE: 675,000 SF LOCATION: Brooklyn, NY STATUS: Built PROGRAM: Office

Dock 72, built on the site of a former drydock in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, is a modern office building designed to reflect its context and respond to how people work today. The 16-story, 675,000-square-foot building is sited in the repositioned Brooklyn Navy Yard, home to over 300 local businesses generating more than $2B of revenue annually. Dock 72 is designed to engage with this context and enhance it by facilitating interactions between building users and the Navy Yard itself.

The building’s form is inspired by the large ships once built in the Navy Yard and serviced at Dock 72. S9 redefines the conventional office building and makes site-specific interventions by lifting it above the flood zone on V-shaped columns and sculpting its mass with terraced, green setbacks that provide shared, social space for tenants within. The gridded exterior façade maintains a visual continuity with the traditional industrial architecture of the Navy Yard, while interior staircases and social spaces are exposed, embodying the building's intention for transparency and creating dialogue between the inner workings and exterior context.

Dual entrances of the building engage with both the land and water sides of the lot; an on-site ferry terminal connects water transport directly to the building. Inside, workspace for creative, tech, and light manufacturing is intermixed with shared and social amenities. First-floor gathering space is continued on the second floor with a juice bar and bleacher seating, as well as a gym available to tenants. Throughout the building, gathering spaces are designed to showcase views of the surrounding industrial context and facilitate collaboration and networking through co-mingling and interaction. A rooftop event facility includes a kitchen and both indoor and outdoor lounges.

Developed in conjunction with co-working pioneers WeWork, as well as Rudin Development, Boston Properties, and Project Manager: Perkins Eastman, Dock 72 adds 450,000 square feet of modern commercial and light industrial space to the Navy Yard’s existing mix of creative and manufacturing enterprises, and is the largest New York City commercial building built outside of Manhattan in decades. Dock 72 is designed to harness the power of these forces by organically facilitating cross-pollination, networking, and idea sharing through serendipitous encounters between the diverse community of startups, creative, and small businesses who share workspace there.

Dock 72 won a Public Design Commission award for Design Excellence in 2017. It is a fully resilient waterfront building and LEED Certified.