Fall 2017
Project Team : Kevin Hai, Maria Moersen, Mike Roberto, Graysen Babbitt
The Greenpoint Theatre is a twofold project: in addition to fulfilling the requirements of the project to produce a theatre for the eponymous, Brooklyn neighborhood, the premise of the project was to look recontextualize and preserve the existing building into fabric of the theatre. The project is inspired principally by the industrial character of the surrounding neighborhood, and the existing building’s multiple histories which developed over the course of its continual reuse.
In order to approach the project and shape its process, the design looked first and foremost at the preservation of the exterior facades of the building, creating a shell around which the theatre intervention could be surgically placed. In order to create a dialogue between old and new, and to fulfill the requirements of the program (which required additional square footage and space not accommodated for within the existing building), a new, contemporary addition was inserted above the old warehouse, creating a new, transparent lantern above a massive, brick-walled, industrial building. This dialogue is the primary conceptual, structural, and experiential driver of a very technical project.
Throughout the building itself, whether within the new lobby or within the theatre itself, which spans old and new, technical and material moments reveal the fabric of the existing building, materially juxtaposing them alongside any new additions, bestowing upon the theatre its particular character.
