Sometimes all a building really needs to be transformed is just a facelift, and this is exactly what Andre Kikoski Architects (AKA) provided for two abandoned warehouses in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. AKA designed and installed a moveable steel facade that opens, just like an airplane hanger, to reveal the building's doors and windows behind. By day the facade provides an awning for the building and passerbys to rest beneath, and at night the steel facade protects the building. Fashioned with LED lights, the building emits an incredible glow through an abstract assembly of perforations in steel.

Two Bushwick warehouses are joined together in this renovation project, called the Wycoff Exchange, that includes a live music and performance venue along with an organic market and boutique wine shop. Manhattan-based AKA is also designing the interior of the bar venue, called Radio Bushwick, which will be completes by the year’s end.

The steel facade is 100 feet long, 18 feet tall, two inches thick, and is made out of an oxidized layer or COR-TEN steel on the outside with a reflective layer of stainless steel on the inside. Laser cut perforations in both layers of the steel create a gradient pattern and LED lights concealed behind the panels shine out from behind to illuminate the facade.

2 Comments

Pixelated Garden Topped... December 10, 2010 at 8:58 am

[...] to those functions, the panels are a sweet design element. During the day, the holes in the facade will appear black on the bright aluminium, causing a giant rasterized picture of Mount Everest to [...]
Rainbow Hued Los Heroes... December 8, 2010 at 9:31 am

[...] upon the concept of leisure and fun and clad its dreary walls with an eye-catching multi-colored facade that also works as a UV filter. [...]