Bjarke Ingels unveils cascading concrete tower with 1,000 apartments along the Gowanus Canal

It’s going to be BIG. Architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) this week unveiled designs for a 1,000-unit mixed-use tower at 175 Third Street in Gowanus, expected to be the largest building in the neighborhood. Situated along the canal, the concrete-clad building will take a horseshoe shape and rise 27 stories in a series of cascading volumes. The u-shape design opens towards the canal, where a park and esplanade will offer public open space and flood protection.

Charney Companies and Tavros are developing the one million-square-foot project as part of their Gowanus Wharf development, which includes projects at 240 3rd Avenue, 251 Douglass Street, and 310 and 340 Nevins Street.

Last month, the developers secured $174.5 million in financing for 175 Third Street, the fourth site in the project. According to Sam Charney, principal of Charney Companies, the developers issued a request for proposals and selected BIG’s designs out of five submissions.

“They understood the location, the surroundings, and the history of Gowanus, which we appreciated,” Charney said.

BIG might have had a leg up on the competition since the firm had been tapped for the site in 2018, when Aby Rosen’s real estate firm RFR Realty proposed a residential tower at the property. BIG’s original design featured a tiered shape with walkable ramps and a waterfront park, as Brownstoner reported. The 20-story complex was going to have 375 apartments and retail on the ground floor.

“We did not like the previous iteration,” Charney told the New York Post. “It was inefficient and hard to build. It had a red-brick design that kind of drowned out the [red brick] Powerhouse Arts structure next door.”

Designed in collaboration with dencityworks | architecture, the new idea features a facade of cast-in-place concrete and stacked blocks that connect on the east side to “form a descending U-shape opening towards the waterfront.”

According to the architects, sloping entry points pull back from the street to provide wayfinding and to better blend with its neighbors, including landmarks like the Coignet Stone Company building, the American Can Company building, and Powerhouse Arts.

“Our design for 175 Third Street in Gowanus is conceived as a three-dimensional neighborhood of building blocks stacked to frame a central park cascading down towards the canal waterfront,” Bjarke Ingels, founder of BIG, said in a statement.

“The rational volumes are chiseled and chamfered, opening up the corners to create terraces, entrances, and outdoor spaces. The resultant architecture provides a plethora of niches for all forms of life–urban and intimate, public and private–within and around.”

There will be 1,000 studio to three-bedroom apartments, including 250 affordable units, and a mix of retail and artist spaces on the ground floor. The building, designed as an Ultra-Low Energy Building, will offer high-end amenities, including a rooftop with a lounge and outdoor pool.

The waterfront park along the Gowanus Canal will connect 2nd and 3rd Streets and feature a multi-use recreation court, a dog run, a lawn, fitness nooks, seating, and plantings. Designed by James Corner Field Operations, a 37,000-square-foot waterfront esplanade will provide a protective buffer and absorb water during floods.

Construction is expected to begin in the middle of next year.

The project is possible because of the 2021 Gowanus rezoning, which upzoned 82 blocks of mostly industrial blocks and has led to a building boom of 7,000 new apartments. The cleanup of the canal, a superfund project, started in 2010 and is still underway.

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