Project Description
This project was recognized in the NYC Public Design Commission’s 38th Annual Awards for Excellence in Design.
FROM THE NYC PUBLIC DESIGN COMMISSION DESIGN AWARDS:
Every day, New York City’s 14 wastewater resource recovery facilities treat over a billion gallons of wastewater to remove pollutants and release clean water into the surrounding waterways. The Wards Island facility has been in operation since 1937, and today it serves over a million New Yorkers in the Bronx and Manhattan. The Wards Island pre-houses enclose the electrical and mechanical equipment that support one of the first steps in the wastewater treatment process: primary settling, wherein heavier solid organics sink down and are removed from the water.
The design for the rehabilitation draws from the material, texture, and color palette of the facility’s existing architecture, which ranges from WPA-era to contemporary, in order to establish a fresh yet contextual design. The rehabilitated pre-houses are re-clad in a lightweight rainscreen system of blue facebrick and pearlescent metal paneling, delineated by a strong red stripe running across the parapet and downthe façade in the form of the downspout. The ratio of brick to metal panel cladding alternates from one pre-house to the next to create a visual volley down the battery of tanks, and each structure is numbered with an impactful supergraphic.