Light falls on the Refinery at Domino, a former sugar factory at the heart of the transformation of Brooklyn’s waterfront.
Photo: Max Touhey, courtesy of Two Trees
This Brooklyn Waterfront Revival Aims for the Sweet Spot
To transform a landmarked Domino Sugar refinery into high-end office space, the architects of PAU had to insert a glassy new building into an industrial relic.
There may not be a worse time to debut a new office building, especially one that has been dropped into the empty hulk of a 12-story-high factory.
With their beefy brick walls, steel-sash windows and fretwork roof trusses, former industrial buildings have long been favored by creative industries in media, advertising, design and tech. But the conversion of a block-long sugar refinery in Brooklyn was a challenge on an entirely different scale. Built in 1884 and abandoned two decades ago, the crimson goliath has loomed over Williamsburg’s low-rise industrial waterfront like a primordial geological formation.