Gensler has completed an irregularly stacked office block with a brick facade in New York that echos the factories and warehouses of its Williamsburg waterfront location.
Called 25 Kent, the eight-storey office complex is split in two. Dual red brick structures mirror each other across a plaza that cuts through the middle of the site.

The two blocks are tiered, with a series of terraces off-set from one another at every other level to form a vertically zigzagging facade. Floor-to-ceiling glazing in blackened steel frames covers the ends of both volumes.
A middle volume clad in matching dramatic blackened steel connects the two brick structures from two levels above the ground, shading the internal plaza while also funnelling the wind.

Gensler chose red brick and blackened steel details for the main exterior material as a nod to the neighbourhood's industrial past and its nearby brickwork factories, such as the derelict Domino Sugar Factory. "Acknowledging and playing off the industrial heritage of the site to us was very important", Gensler design manager Anne-Sophie Hall told Dezeen.
"25 Kent is the first ground-up commercial office development in Williamsburg in more than 40 years," she added.

Inside, all of the levels have the same layout. There are few internal walls so that companies who rent space can custom design their offices.
Every floor has 4.5-metre-high windows that puncture the structural brickwork, bringing daylight into the workspaces....