Fig. 01 / Project 07 of 10 / Point cloud
Local grid / 1 : 400
Gowanus ArchiveBrooklyn, 2025
- Area
- 6 800 m²
- Year
- 2025
- Structure
- Concrete
- Status
- Complete
Fig. 02 / Drawing set / Plan, section, elevation, axonometric
Fine lines drawn from the model / point cloud on the last tab
Drawn fromthe same model.
Every drawing below comes from the model the building was built and scanned against, with its grid, levels and the dimensions the site team worked to.
Fig. 03 / Scan vs design / As built against as drawn
Grey under 3 mm / blue over 8 mm
The building,against its drawing.
Drag the handle to compare the design with the latest scan. Each point is coloured by how far the built surface sits from the drawn one.
14 mm / Column line D, 1924 frame, recorded and kept
Fig. 04 / Construction / Survey to handover
All milestones complete
Construction timeline
- Survey / Done
- Foundations / Done
- Structure / Done
- Envelope / Done
- Handover / Done
- Survey
- Foundations
- Structure
- Envelope
- Handover
May 2022 to Apr 2025 / 35 months
Fig. 05 / Credits / Team
Everyone who built it
Credits
- Client
- Brooklyn Records Trust
- Structure
- Hollis Pike Structural
- Services
- Canal Street Mechanical
- Contractor
- Wexford Builders
- Scan imagery
- Norrvik
Fig. 06 / Narrative / What the model found
About 200 words
About the project
- Client
- Brooklyn Records Trust
- Location
- Brooklyn / United States
- Sensors
- 286
Gowanus Archive turns a four-storey 1924 concrete warehouse on the Gowanus Canal into the records archive and public reading room of a Brooklyn foundation. The frame stayed, the floors were strengthened for compact shelving, and a new timber reading room sits on the roof above the canal. It was the first project led from the New York studio.
We scanned the warehouse floor by floor before a single wall came down, 142 million points in all. The scan showed column line D leaning 14 millimetres out of plumb over four storeys, a century-old drift the drawings never recorded. Instead of correcting it, the engineers checked it against the new shelving loads, kept it, and built the new floors to the column as it stands. Today 286 sensors hold the archive stores at 18 degrees and 45 percent humidity and report to the model every fifteen minutes, with flood sensors along the canal side of the basement.
Fig. 07 / Energy / 24 months monitored
kWh per m² per month / dashed line is the target
Energy use,month by month.
- Last 12 months
- 69 kWh/m²
- Monthly target
- 5.4 kWh/m²
- Months at or under target
- 06 / 17
- Embodied carbon
- 148 kgCO2e/m²
| Period | Measured |
|---|---|
| Oct 24 | No data |
| Nov 24 | No data |
| Dec 24 | No data |
| Jan 25 | No data |
| Feb 25 | No data |
| Mar 25 | No data |
| Apr 25 | No data |
| May 25 | 5.1 kWh/m² |
| Jun 25 | 5.9 kWh/m² |
| Jul 25 | 6.8 kWh/m² |
| Aug 25 | 6.9 kWh/m² |
| Sep 25 | 5.8 kWh/m² |
| Oct 25 | 4.9 kWh/m² |
| Nov 25 | 5.3 kWh/m² |
| Dec 25 | 6.2 kWh/m² |
| Jan 26 | 6.9 kWh/m² |
| Feb 26 | 6.6 kWh/m² |
| Mar 26 | 5.8 kWh/m² |
| Apr 26 | 5 kWh/m² |
| May 26 | 4.8 kWh/m² |
| Jun 26 | 5.5 kWh/m² |
| Jul 26 | 6.3 kWh/m² |
| Aug 26 | 6.4 kWh/m² |
| Sep 26 | 5.4 kWh/m² |
Fig. 08 / Materials / Structural mass
Share by weight, as built
| Material | Share |
|---|---|
| Concrete | 58% |
| Timber | 17% |
| Steel | 13% |
| Glass | 8% |
| Other | 4% |
Fig. 09 / Lessons learned / Carried into the next model
03 entries
- L01Lesson learnedScan an old frame before you design for it, not after the shelving is ordered.
- L02Lesson learnedA century of drift was safe. Straightening it would have cost a floor.
- L03Lesson learnedFlood sensors in the basement paid for themselves in the first storm season.
