25 Kent is a new tech campus in Brooklyn designed as a social campus for innovators, startup founders, and tech leaders. The project is Williamsburg’s first speculative office space in over 50 years.
The 500,000-sf building, which occupies a full city block, has staggered floors to create a ziggurat-shaped building that juts in and out as it rises. The short ends of the facade are capped in floor-to-ceiling windows that bring natural light into the building and provide views of the Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn. The building’s exterior takes its cues from the neighborhood’s industrial character as it stacks a series of brick forms that are an homage to the materials and proportions of nearby warehouses.
25 Kent’s H-shaped plan creates advantages over a generic donut office building. Instead of a typical 45-foot span between the core and the walls, 25 Kent achieves 70-foot spans with three-sided window exposure. Mechanical and circulation cores, of which each wing of the building has its own, were distributed throughout to create flexible floor plates that can be used by single tenants, two tenants, or adapted for a large quantity of multi-tenant configurations. A shared central space connects the two wings and acts as a space for tenants to socialize and collaborate informally.
See Also: River Rock mixed-use community breaks ground in Chattanooga
The interior features highly flexible floor plates designed to support a wide variety of tenants. Several types of workspaces, such as fully-equipped maker spaces, open plan office floors with shared coworking spaces, collaborative lounges, and glass-enclosed conference rooms, offer tailored environments to each tenant’s particular needs.
Related Stories
| Oct 23, 2013
Gehry, Foster join Battersea Power Station redevelopment
Norman Foster and Frank Gehry have been selected to design a retail section within the £8 billion redevelopment of Battersea Power Station in London.
| Oct 21, 2013
University of Queensland’s net-zero building features biomimicry-based design
University of Queensland’s Global Change Institute (GCI) building in Australia showcases on-site solar energy sources, biomimicry-based design features, and the first structural use of low-carbon concrete in the country.
| Oct 18, 2013
Meet the winners of BD+C's $5,000 Vision U40 Competition
Fifteen teams competed last week in the first annual Vision U40 Competition at BD+C's Under 40 Leadership Summit in San Francisco. Here are the five winning teams, including the $3,000 grand prize honorees.
| Oct 18, 2013
Researchers discover tension-fusing properties of metal
When a group of MIT researchers recently discovered that stress can cause metal alloy to fuse rather than break apart, they assumed it must be a mistake. It wasn't. The surprising finding could lead to self-healing materials that repair early damage before it has a chance to spread.
| Oct 18, 2013
Sustainability expert: Smart building technology can have quick payback
Smart building technology investments typically pay for themselves within one or two years by delivering energy savings and maintenance efficiencies.
| Oct 14, 2013
How to leverage workplaces to attract and retain top talent
Just about every conversation I have related to employee attraction and retention tends to turn into an HR sounding discussion about office protocols, incentives, and perks. But as a workplace strategist, I need to help my clients make more tangible links between their physical workplace and how it can be leveraged to attract and retain top talent. Here are some ideas.
| Oct 10, 2013
Carnegie Mellon study looks at impact of dashboards on energy consumption
A recent study by Carnegie Mellon took a look at the impact of providing feedback in an energy dashboard form to workers and studying how it impacted overall energy consumption.
| Oct 9, 2013
SOM gets second crack at iconic modernist structure in New York
More than 50 years after SOM completed the Manufacturers Hanover Trust building, the firm is asked to restore and modernize the space.
| Oct 7, 2013
Nation's first glass curtain wall exterior restored in San Francisco
The Hallidie Building's glass-and-steel skin is generally recognized as the forerunner of today’s curtain wall facilities.
| Oct 7, 2013
10 award-winning metal building projects
The FDNY Fireboat Firehouse in New York and the Cirrus Logic Building in Austin, Texas, are among nine projects named winners of the 2013 Chairman’s Award by the Metal Construction Association for outstanding design and construction.