The Refinery at Domino

Client
Two Trees Management

Location
Brooklyn, NY

Program
Office Building with Public and Retail Ground-Floor Uses

Size
460,000 RSF

Status
Complete

The Refinery is seminal to PAU’s body of work because it embodies PAU’s concern for the palimpsest of the city, for conserving embodied energy and narrative, and for celebrating history by projecting it into the future. While a partner at SHoP Architects, PAU Founder and Creative Director, Vishaan Chakrabarti, and the landscape firm Field Operations established a plan for the 11-acre site including a quarter-mile long waterfront park, a plaza adjacent to the Refinery, and a street grid that extends the fabric of Williamsburg.

In 2017, soon after Chakrabarti founded PAU, Two Trees commissioned PAU to adapt the refinery structure for creative office space, an event venue, and ground floor food, beverage, and shops. Purpose-built for sugar production, the NYC landmark is a merger of three separate structures with small, misaligned windows. PAU’s elegant design responded by nesting a contemporary curtainwall building within the historic masonry—what some call “a bottle in a ship”— in order to create level, wheelchair-friendly office floors bathed with ambient light.

Existing Conditions | Photo Credit: Paul Raphaelson

Havemeyer Sugar Refinery | Note: Some features of the Refinery have been simplified for this illustrative drawing

Relationship to historic façade | Two possible approaches

Studying optimal gap dimension for access to light and views

Historic condition | Façade braced back to superstructure

Proposed condition | Façade braced back to superstructure

Outrigger penetration detail through the new curtain wall

This is the best piece of new architecture along the New York waterfront right now, and, arguably, the most important […] As a work of design, it’s the most compelling juxtaposition of old and new that the city has seen since the completion of the Hearst Tower […]”

Paul Goldberger, Architectural Critic

The brick exterior shades the interior from heat gain while revealing vignettes of the city and river beyond. The gap between the two façades enables daylight, biophilia, and interior views of the scarred and mottled brick, resulting in a unique post-pandemic workspace of the future.

The skyline barrel vault, achieved by recessing rooftop mechanicals, references the American Round Arch style of the historic structure’s windows and creates column-free event space with stunning views. On the ground floor the windowsills have been dropped to grade to create porosity from shops into the surrounding parks. The progressive design received near-unanimous approval from the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission and has become a beloved part of the community.

Collaborators
Interior Architect of Record: Dencity Works Architecture
Structure: Silman
MEP: Ettinger Engineering Associates
Landscape: Field Operations
Façade Consultant: Focchi Group
Lighting: L’Observatoire International
Photography: Max Touhey