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November 17, 2011
Design Unveiled for Tower at Atlantic Yards
City Room
by Charles V. Bagli
SHoP has replaced Frank Gehry's stacked shoe boxes with stacked milk crates. Modular milk crates.
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The developer Bruce C. Ratner unveiled the design Thursday morning for the world’s tallest prefabricated steel structure, a 32-story residential building at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street in the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project.
The 350-unit building uses rectangular shapes, colors and glass to break up the mass of the structure, which would sit snugly up against Barclays Center, the new arena of the Nets basketball team that is scheduled to open in September 2012. Mr. Ratner, chief executive of Forest City Ratner, said that prefabrication or modular construction could save time and cut construction costs by as much as 25 percent. Fourteen other residential buildings would be built at Atlantic Yards using the same technology.
Forest City Ratner is also negotiating a labor agreement with construction unions, which have supported Atlantic Yards, but could end up with fewer jobs and lower wages for some workers if the project goes forward.
Mr. Ratner said Thursday that he hoped to begin construction early next year. But the start date has been a moving target for more than a year now.
Related coverage...
The Wall Street Journal, Plans Unveiled for Apartments Over NBA Arena
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Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards is going boxy.
...Just how the buildings will be constructed is also unclear. Forest City said Thursday that it intends to use modular construction, a mostly untested technique for high-rise buildings. But the developer hasn’t made a final decision and said it is still negotiating with unions.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Forest City has released a rendering only to see the project depart dramatically from its initial vision.
Curbed, Atlantic Yards' Modular Rental Tower Will be World's Tallest
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Working with Arup and XSite Modular, the architects configured 930 steel chassis modules around a lateral system of steel braced frames, with all the connections on the exterior of the modules, a method the developer describes as "process, not product innovation."
Brownstoner, Renderings Released for First Atlantic Yards High-Rise; Ratner Wants to Go Prefab
Bruce Ratner says 60 percent of construction would take place in a factory, and a deal still needs to be hammered out with construction workers since union workers make significantly less in factory settings than at construction sites.
The Brooklyn Paper, BREAKING: Ratner’s pre-fab tower!
Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner will build the world’s tallest pre-fabricated tower as the first residential building inside his mega-project, dealing a blow to labor unions and architecture enthusiasts, but jumpstarting his stalled development.
Crain's NY Business, Low-cost construction set for Atlantic Yards towers
All renderings: SHoP Architects
Posted by eric at November 17, 2011 2:52 PM