Setting precedent at Bridge Rockaway

Co-locating affordable housing and light manufacturing in one development has not been done before in NYC, until the recently completed Bridge Rockaway. Read more

Game Arts Center at Pratt Institute

Think! has created a new Game Arts Center at Pratt Institute from former administrative space at Myrtle Hall. Learn more …

Affordable Housing Design

Insight into how Think! has established a track record and reputation for designing affordable and supportive housing in the 5 boroughs.

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Glenmore Manor tops out

Glenmore Manor in Brownsville, Brooklyn will provide 233 apartments serving low income families, formerly homeless individuals and low-income seniors. Read more …

A new theater for East Rockaway

The Strongbox Theater is a renovation of the former East Rockaway National Bank and Trust Company bank and two adjacent buildings. Read …

Promotions

Think! is happy to announce the promotions of Lisette Wong to Associate Principal, Paúl Duston-Muñoz to Senior Associate and Henri Villanueva to Associate.

The Bridge Rockaway mixed-use project in Brooklyn was an 8-year exercise of bravery, hope and ambition. A journey through the maze of Byzantine text known as the NYC Zoning Resolution, an immutable 1,000 page document, that was in fact mutated through a years’ long process and resulted in a rare Text Amendment, allowing a combination of uses never seen in New York before - a large, 39,000 sq ft light manufacturing center with two residential buildings above accommodating 174 affordable and supportive apartments. This idea was generated not only to address a severe scarcity of affordable housing but also to address very high unemployment in Brownsville, one of the City's poorest neighborhoods.

Three groups joined forces to make this unlikely project come to life -  The Bridge, a venerable mental health and housing non-profit, Mega Development, specializing in affordable housing, and GMDC, whose mission centers around creating low-cost space as incubators for local makers, and with the higher wages that brings, lifting the economic bar in Brownsville. The program also includes supportive social services offices for The Bridge, a street level rental space for local non-profits and a generous 14,000 sq ft garden between the two residences. Two years of intense negotiations with various city agencies, concerned about safety issues between the manufacturing and residents, resulted in approval. Six years later the ribbon has been cut.

Beyond the necessary technical safeguards for the residents, we began our design approach from a place of humanism, taking delight in the diversity of the program and resident populations and in the implicit opportunities to bring everyone into a common shared community. What's now considered the social heart of the 180,000 sq ft project is a wide glass link connecting the two buildings with a series of shared amenity spaces, each focusing to the central garden. This transparent connecting device encourages people from both wings to socially interact, within a compelling indoor/outdoor experience. Laundry is drying as kids are playing outside in clear sight. That connectivity became a central notion informing the collective resident experience.

When asked their favorite thing, new residents often refer to their bright kitchens, or the oversized windows looking out to the garden. But most refer to the act of entering a double height lobby, ascending up a wide open stair to the 2nd floor amenity "podium", looking through the glass link and entering the garden to meet their new friends. By standards of low income housing this sequence seems impossibly grand, dignified, even hopeful. To us, the hope is this new home will inspire a transformative force in their lives.

Bridge Rockaway recently received the NYSAFAH downstate project of the year award and is being honored at the CHPC Annual Luncheon with the Impact for Community Investment Award.

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Think! created Pratt’s new Game Arts Center at Pratt Institute from former administrative space at Pratt’s Myrtle Hall. In recent years Pratt’s leadership has recognized the imperative to respond directly through the curriculum to incoming students, and has reflected the profound impact digital technology has on the creative arts today. Think! has been at the leading edge of this change, first with the Pratt Department of Digital Arts (at Myrtle Hall), then with the Department of Film and Video, and now the Game Arts Studio. Game Arts was conceived as a free-form deep space environment that is meant to highlight the kinetic video displays and on-screen work of our future video artists.

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Construction has topped out at Glenmore Manor in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Designed for Brisa Builders, Lemle & Wolff Companies, and the African American Planning Commission; the project will create 233 apartments serving low income families, formerly homeless individuals and low-income seniors.

Located at the intersection of Christopher and Glenmore Avenues, the development is one of several residential components in the Brownsville Neighborhood Plan, an initiative to revitalize and invigorate the surrounding area. And one of several projects Think! is delivering in the neighborhood.

This critically needed project incorporates the key goals of the Plan including commercial and community facilities to create a center for innovation and local entrepreneurship. Its purpose is to energize the neighborhood providing new jobs and opportunities. This center is conceived as a 20,000 sq ft two story, highly transparent element known as the B’Ville Hub. Above the Hub, the building’s façade is composed of glazed blue brick and dark metal trim, with green roofs and solar panels to enhance the project’s sustainability.

The overall design builds on opportunities within the existing urban landscape, strategically locating building mass, storefronts and entrances to strengthen pedestrian corridors and create diverse opportunities for social and economic activities.

Completion is expected in 2026

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Affordable Housing Design

Our residential projects run the gamut from high-end condominiums, to market rate rentals, to affordable and supportive development. For each of these projects, we bring the same set of values: a commitment to design excellence, a respect for residents who will be living in the buildings that we design and a dedication to the improvement of the neighborhoods where these buildings will stand for generations. We strongly believe everyone, regardless of circumstances, is entitled to quality housing that is attractive, improves the quality of their lives and contributes to their well-being, so we work diligently to make sure we find the unique solutions that make each project special and just right with regards to its vision, location, market and budget.

Affordable and supportive housing has become an area of significant expertise at Think! Over the last several years we have been responsible for well over 1.5 million square feet of this type of housing, either fully completed, under construction or currently in design. This includes five different buildings in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn alone. These projects have been designed for a wide range of not-for-profit organizations working in the fulfillment of their missions, as well as for commercial developers also working in this field.

In our experience, developing large scale affordable housing in an urban environment is incredibly involved; drawing on multiple funding sources for a single project; encompassing the engagement of, and being sensitive to the needs of diverse communities; incorporating a mix of uses that reflect the stipulations of the funding authorities as well as local demand; and complex urban sites and the existing conditions and neighborhood context that accompany them.

But the possibilities for real impact are many: the possibility of mixes of uses that drive employment as well as working to fill the affordable housing shortage, as at The Bridge Rockaway, where housing is sited with light manufacturing – unseen before in NYC; the opportunities to create supportive environments where services are available within the building to assist the most vulnerable in getting on their feet in their new homes; the chance to maintain a much loved urban garden while also providing homes for the elderly that allow them to stay in their community, such as our RFP design for the Mott / Elizabeth Street senior housing (on this occasion we didn’t win) and our recently completed senior residence in Bed-Stuy.

There are also opportunities such as NYSERDA’s Building of Excellence Awards Program which incentivizes sustainable design and rewards, with significant funding, the design, construction, and operation of clean, resilient, and carbon neutral-ready multifamily buildings. Passive House design for multi-family buildings is something Think! is committed to and promotes, wherever there is the possibility. In 2018 we completed one of the first Passive House certified affordable housing developments in the country at HANAC Senior Residences in Corona, Queens. We are currently using that experience, as well as the Passive House expertise within our experienced team, to inform the design for Malcolm Shabazz Harlem Plaza which was recently awarded in the Buildings of Excellence program.

The knowledge the Think! team has developed over our years of designing and delivering affordable and supportive housing is deep, varied and representative of the many challenges and lengthy processes it can involve to bring these buildings to fruition. We are able to offer our clients a real understanding of the path ahead of them and combine that with design capabilities that meet budgets but include architectural features, light and spaces not normally seen in affordable housing.

We enjoy the challenge, enjoy the design process and the committed clients we work with, and take pride in seeing the buildings come to life as people’s homes.

The Strongbox Theater is a renovation of an existing bank and two adjacent buildings for a new use as a performing arts and event space, totaling 5,306 sq ft. A new addition (816 sq ft) will be provided in the rear of the main building to support the new use while a vestibule is introduced to engage with the commercial street and connect the three existing structures. 

The volume of the existing historic bank building turned out to be of the perfect proportions for a performance space which will be augmented by a new theatrical lighting grid, acoustic treatments and other theatrical infrastructure components.  A new entrance will be provided with illuminated signage and backlit video displays.  The project will also contain a full service bar and catering kitchen.

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