Architects Working on Design/Build in a Storied Brooklyn Neighborhood

Day 5: Situated on the Red Hook, Brooklyn, waterfront in a Civil Warera warehouse, Made is a burgeoning architecture practice. In the true sense of design/build, many of the shops team members are both designers and contractors, an approach to working that centralizes creative controland responsibility. The immersive, multi-level process at Made is fitting for the residential projects that make up the majority of the firms work since it allows for close collaboration in such personal spaces. Design at Made is driven by salvaged, locally available, sustainable materials, many of which are housed in a large library in the shop. Residential Architect recently listed the firmas one of its15 young firms to watch.

Dockside Design/Build in Red Hook, Brooklyn from ARCHITECT Magazine on Vimeo.

Take a look back at Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4.

The gentrification tale of Red Hook, in Brooklyn, N.Y., ebbs and flows with the tides that crash against its shores. Named originally by Dutch settlers for its red clay and its position on the waterfront as a point of land ("hoek" in Dutch), from 1920 to 1960, Red Hook was arguably the busiest freight port in the world. The area was rife with longshoremen: On the Waterfront was filmed here in 1954. By 1988, though, LIFE magazine had named it "the crack capital of America, and the neighborhood was largely abandoned. Red Hook is home to the citys second-largest public housing development, and in 2008, IKEA built an outpost here, following on the heels of artists who had migrated to the area to take advantage of inexpensive real estate and the seaside atmosphere.

So what's going on in Red Hook today? Though remotethere is no direct subway access and only one bus linethe neighborhood is home to excellent restaurants, charming dive bars, and a large, sometimes familial design/build community. Hidden in Civil Warera waterfront warehouses and down cobbled streets lie thriving studios and workshops. ARCHITECT magazine took a look at five studios that give you a sense of whats happening in Red Hook.

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Architects Working on Design/Build in a Storied Brooklyn Neighborhood