bjarke ingels group takes on Gowanus
Where the edges of the Gowanus Canal meet the streets of Brooklyn, a new geometry is set to emerge. Rising from a former industrial plot along Third Street, the latest contribution from Bjarke Ingels Group offers a distinctive composition of stepped forms and sculpted voids. Though built on a gridded structural logic, the residential building does not feel rigid. Instead, it opens, literally, to its environment, bending and folding toward light, air, and water.
The design stacks a sequence of block-like volumes, cascading from a peak of 27 stories down toward the canal’s edge. This stepped massing avoids a monolithic presence and instead creates a porous, almost courtyard-like composition that mediates between Gowanus’s historic masonry and its shifting skyline. The eastward-facing U-shape frames the water as a central anchor, forming a spatial relationship that foregrounds the site’s transformation from post-industrial terrain to waterfront destination.
visualizations © Bucharest Studio
toward a more Resilient brooklyn Waterfront
With its tower at 175 Third Street, the team at Bjarke Ingels Group builds on the momentum catalyzed by the 2021 Gowanus rezoning, which unlocked large-scale residential development throughout the neighborhood. Here, that ambition translates into more than 1,000 residential units, including roughly 250 designated affordable. It also continues a lineage of design study by BIG in this part of Brooklyn — an area that has drawn attention for its layered urban character and long-overdue reinvestment.
Chamfered entries pull the building away from the sidewalk in strategic moments, revealing sheltered corners and entryways that invite foot traffic and neighborhood circulation. Along the ground floor, artist studios and retail help integrate the building into a creative district anchored by the Powerhouse Arts facility and punctuated by landmarks like the Coignet Stone Company building. There is an attentiveness to how the new mass meets the street, revealing BIG’s ability to balance scale with intimacy.
the building’s stepped form responds to the canal and surrounding context
High Performance and High Living at 175 third street
Bjarke Ingels Group imagines 175 Third Street’s exposed concrete structure as a reference to the rough textures of the Gowanus Canal’s industrial past. Large openings carve through its facade, offering visual relief while allowing for generous windows and terraces. The texture, scale, and tone of the material choices bring a tactile quality to the project that resonates with the surrounding neighborhood, without replicating it.
A central element of the project is the public waterfront esplanade, designed by Field Operations. The sloping edge does more than extend access to the canal; it creates a buffer, a place that absorbs floodwaters and anchors the development in ecological reality. Unlike other stretches of the Gowanus Canal, this section offers a rare proximity to the water’s edge, which the landscape design by James Corner Field Operations emphasizes with recreation spaces, shaded seating, and a resilient meadow aimed at boosting biodiversity.
the project includes more than 1,000 units with around 250 designated affordable
175 Third Street is designed as an ultra-low-energy building, fully electric and projected to outperform city code by a meaningful margin. Its entire footprint is elevated to withstand flood risk. Inside, residents will find amenities that range from family-friendly to skyline-facing: fitness areas, lounge spaces, and a rooftop pool are all part of the offering. The views extend toward Lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty — reminders of the city beyond, framed by the quiet flow of the canal below.
This project deepens Bjarke Ingels Group’s presence in New York, joining works like VIA 57 West and Wildflower Studios. It also links to BIG’s growing focus on resilient urban design, as seen in the East Side Coastal Resiliency project. In Gowanus, that ethos plays out through a hybrid of form, infrastructure, and landscape.
the east-facing U-shape frames the canal and opens up internal courtyards
project info:
name: 175 Third Street
architect: Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) | @big_builds
location: 175 Third Street, Brooklyn, NY
collaborating architect: dencityworks | architect | @dencityworks
client: Charney Companies | @charneycompanies, Tavros
landscape design: James Corner Field Operations | @fieldoperations
collaborators: AKRF, DeSimone, Ettinger engineering associates, Field Operations, Fried Frank, Hatfield Group, Impact Environmental, Jenkins and Huntington
size: 1,080,000 square ft
visualizations: © Bucharest Studio | @bucharest.studio
partner-in-charge: Bjarke Ingels, Martin Voelkle
project manager: Michelle Stromsta
design lead: Jason Wu
project architect: Christina Papadopoulou
team: Alejandra Cortes, Andreas Buettner, Artem Chouliak, Benjamin Caldwell, Changbin Kim, Douglas Brooks, Eliza Austin, Evan James Hotary, Giulia Frittoli, Jan Leenknegt, Kirat Pandher, Luca McLaughlin, Margaret Tyrpa, Mateo Deza, Matt Adler, Pauline Lavie-Luong, Petch Peewsook, Sungmin Kim, Qyu-Ri Kim, Vi Madrazo
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