Design Vault Ep. 26 1 Java with Jeremy Iannucci

TRANSCRIPT

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;14

Doug Pat (DP)

Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.

 

00;00;05;17 - 00;00;30;22

Jeremy Iannucci (JI)

We like to think that the entire project comes from the community around it. We looked at a series of precedents in the Greenpoint neighborhood, historically in Greenpoint, specifically on the waterfront, to inspire the way that we detail these facades. We have a collection of different brick styles that help to break up the massing of the building, different articulations, as well as material breaks with the two precast towers.

 

00;00;30;25 - 00;03;22;21

DP

This is my guest, Jeremy Iannucci. I'll share more about him shortly. In this episode from The Design Vault, we highlight Marvel’s Project 1 Java in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. 1 Java is a mixed use residential series of buildings located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The project responds to the New York City housing market and owners' needs addressing sustainability, constructability, risk mitigation, tax incentives and marketability.

 

The Development Investment Strategy required a net zero ready design and maximization of floor area. The project includes the largest geothermal array in New York State. The building will participate in the 421A affordable New York and inclusionary housing program, which provides up to 261 affordable housing units out of a total of 871. The new architecture consists of two towers, of prefabricated concrete sheet panels and three lower buildings varying from 6 to 10 storeys with brick masonry facades.

 

All five buildings rise from Greenpoint in a U-shape plan to maximize light views and open space. Terraces on the east and west. Facades of the towers modulate the elevation while creating private terraces for units and amenity spaces. Retail, food and beverage and live workspaces are consolidated along West and India streets. Townhomes share setback stoops, and a small secondary convenience lobby for the low rise along Java Street.

 

Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault. Jeremy Iannucci is a registered architect at Marvel in New York City. He has a Bachelor of Architecture from City College's Spitzer School of Architecture. His portfolio encompasses a number of challenging endeavors at Marvel, including a mixed use project located in Brooklyn's Waterfront, which we will discuss today. Jeremy enjoys taking part in international design competitions, one of which was recently shortlisted in a competition to design a children's hospice center, and another was awarded an honorary mention in which he designed a house relying exclusively on daylighting for organizing spaces and form making.

 

Jeremy also serves as a design critic at the City College of New York and Pratt Institute. So welcome, Jeremy. It's nice to have you with us today. So tell us a little bit about Marvel in New York City. So where in the city are you located? What's the size of the firm? How long has it been around and what type of work do you guys do?

 

00;03;22;23 - 00;03;52;02

JI

Thank you so much for having me on. We are a New York firm. We also have offices in Puerto Rico, Richmond, Virginia, more recently, Barcelona. We're currently located in New York, in Tribeca, and around 200 people at this point. As far as projects that we take on, we like to say design everywhere for everyone. We don't try to limit ourselves to typology.

 

We take whatever comes at us. We measure everything against the values of the firm and we really just enjoy design.

 

00;03;52;05 - 00;03;58;21

DP

So tell us a little bit about yourself. How long have you been working as an architect and what's your role in the office?

 

00;03;58;23 - 00;04;08;27

JI

So in the office I really work through all stages of the project, through design, working on developing proposals, project delivery and currently in construction to administration.

 

00;04;08;29 - 00;04;13;06

DP

So this is a really beautiful project and it's extraordinarily large.

 

00;04;13;12 - 00;04;14;13

JI

Yes, it is.

 

00;04;14;15 - 00;04;17;06

DP

So how did your office get the project?

 

00;04;17;08 - 00;04;33;02

JI

So we were invited to participate in the RFP back in fall of 2020. So there was a few other notable firms in the competition. We were lucky enough to be awarded the project, and we've been working hand in hand with Lendlease in bringing it to fruition ever since.

 

00;04;33;05 - 00;04;37;27

DP

Did you know the clients before you entered the competition?

 

00;04;37;29 - 00;04;47;23

JI

We had some previous relations with the clients as a contractor, but they've recently started opening a development wing in the United States. This is our first project, working with them in that capacity.

 

00;04;47;27 - 00;04;53;19

DP

So this site is really large. Could you give us a little history of the location?

 

00;04;53;21 - 00;05;23;07

JI

The site is 200 feet in the north south and then between West Street and the East River. Around 600 feet with 40 feet reserved for a waterfront esplanade. We actually pulled back even a little bit further from that. And it's located right on the waterfront in Greenpoint. There was recently a rezoning that allowed for a whole redesign of the waterfront, and our project is one of the earlier projects in that redevelopment.

 

00;05;23;09 - 00;05;29;05

DP

So could you give us an idea of what the scope of the project is and the programmatic requirements?

 

00;05;29;07 - 00;05;49;14

JI

So it's a residential project, around 834 units, encompassing a total of around 800,000 square feet. This also comes with a series of amenity spaces, a series of retail spaces, as well as that waterfront park, and also a collection of rooftop amenities and green space.

 

00;05;49;17 - 00;05;56;11

DP

So let's talk about the building design stylistically. Were you guys borrowing from anything locally?

 

00;05;56;14 - 00;06;21;16

JI

We like to think that the entire project comes from the community around it. We looked at a series of precedents in the Greenpoint neighborhood, historically in Greenpoint, specifically on the waterfront, to inspire the way that we detail these facades. We have a collection of different brick styles that help to break up the massing of the building, different articulations, as well as material breaks with the two precast towers.

 

00;06;21;18 - 00;06;26;20

DP

So what was on the site before you guys ended up building the new architecture?

 

00;06;26;23 - 00;06;51;02

JI

Previously, there was a two story warehouse on the site and it really was kind of a beautiful space in its own right before we got the chance to tour around, before it was demolished. And I think walking around really inspired us just with these qualities of light and materials and things that were really native to the waterfront before all of this redevelopment.

 

00;06;51;05 - 00;07;00;18

DP

And the project, as I said, very large. Could you tell me a little bit about the zoning requirements and any challenges you guys had in terms of planning?

 

00;07;00;21 - 00;08;03;15

JI

So the project is as of right, it follows the zoning guidelines, the lot itself is actually split up into two different zones. So towards the inland it's mostly low rise. We had a height cap of 65 feet with portions that were allowable to go up to 100. And then towards the waterfront, the zoning actually got a little more complicated where there were a few different conditions that you could meet.

 

It opened up these different paths for how the building could be formed. One path was a one tower scheme, which would bring you up to 360 feet. And then the other was actually a two tower scheme where if one tower made it to 200 feet, the other would be allowed up to 400 feet. We took advantage of that in order to move more of the mass to the waterfront.

 

It helped gradually declined the building back into the fabric of the community and it provided more waterfront views overall, just a better experience and connection of the building, both to the water and to the community.

 

00;08;03;17 - 00;08;06;02

DP

So were there any floodplain restrictions?

 

00;08;06;05 - 00;08;49;21

JI

Yes. The floodplain has actually set one foot above the highest point of the site, which is the most inland. And then the site gradually slopes down another 6 to 7 feet towards the water. So much of the initial design strategy of the project was finding ways to transition from the ground to above that floodplain elevation. And we accomplished this a number of ways.

 

We actually set the building back the distance from the lot line as we get closer to the water, and this allows us to use landscaping as a way to gradually transition back up to that flood elevation, as well as moving all of our program spaces above and then moving more utilitarian spaces such as bike rooms down below the flood elevation.

 

00;08;49;24 - 00;09;12;26

DP

So I'm thinking about our listeners, how to describe the site because we have a series of buildings here. Is there a simple way for you to explain the building plans on the site? So first we describe the shape of the site and plan, and then if you could give us an idea about how those buildings are organized on the site.

 

00;09;12;29 - 00;09;40;18

JI

So the site's essentially just a rectangle. It's the size of a full city block and on three sides, on the north, the east and the south, we have streets and then the west side is the waterfront. It's the East River. So the way that we've organized the buildings around the site is in this U-shape, where they start up in the northwest corner, move around down West Street and then below, creating a view that opens up towards the water.

 

00;09;40;20 - 00;09;43;19

DP

So it's really all about the views, which it should be.

 

00;09;43;21 - 00;09;58;19

JI

Yes, it's something that it needs to be on the waterfront as well as it is about the views back into the neighborhood. We try to open up the view corridors from the building and leave as much view towards the water and towards the horizon from the rest of Greenpoint as we can.

 

00;09;58;22 - 00;10;08;12

DP

So tell us a little bit about the material choices. You've got a series of different materials and colors there. What were the decisions behind that?

 

00;10;08;15 - 00;11;00;05

JI

The building massing itself is broken up into five unique buildings and out of those we have two towers that are precast, and those are the buildings on the waterfront and then inland. There are three different buildings that range from ten stories to six stories. And those three buildings are brick. And that we really wanted to draw back from a lot of our inspirations in the Greenpoint community.

 

There's no shortage of brick precedents there. There's beautiful buildings such as the Astral, which is this Queen Ann red brick Terracotta building. There's St Anthony's Church, which is red brick and limestone trim. It's really beautiful, striking building. We looked towards kind of the history of the waterfront, those manufacturing, industrial buildings, and used that precedent to define these brick colors, these three different brick buildings.

 

00;11;00;08 - 00;11;28;28

DP

So interestingly, the facades. So we've got the shorter, or we've got the less tall architecture, which are brick buildings, and the facades are a series of what I'll call punctures with spandrel, it looks like spandrel brick in between each one of these vertically in between each one of the window openings, correct? Yes. So how many studies did you guys end up doing to decide what these facades looked like?

 

00;11;29;00 - 00;12;07;13

JI

Everything kind of melded together at some point. It's hard to break it down into a number because it was just this completely iterative process where we'd look at something, we'd make a model, we draw it, we'd look at it again, we'd make another model, we draw it. And this evolved from the concept schematic designs all the way through to the construction document development.

 

This idea of the different brick details that actually came from wanting to streamline the project. So we used the same details on each of the brick buildings, but we remixed them in each one. We use them in a different order to create a different identity for each of these.

 

00;12;07;20 - 00;12;25;01

DP

I think what's really interesting about these facades too, so you separate the facade these into squares or rectangles, and then they have this very, well, it looks subtle in elevation from far away, but it's actually a very large construction joint in between each one of these square rectangular panels, correct?

 

00;12;25;03 - 00;12;40;03

JI

Yes. We use that construction joint and we overemphasize it. We use this double soldier coursing reveal as a way to further break up the massing and kind of imply this subdivisions within the buildings.

 

00;12;40;06 - 00;12;43;17

DP

And how deep is that? Is that one brick thickness?

 

00;12;43;22 - 00;12;44;20

JI

It's two inches.

 

00;12;44;20 - 00;12;55;11

DP

Two inches. It's nice because when you look at the facade, I mean, it looks quite homogenous. But if you look at it a little bit more deeply, it's separated in these squares and rectangles. Very pretty.

 

00;12;55;16 - 00;13;14;27

JI

Yeah, that's the effect that we really want to go for in terms of how this fits into the fabric of Greenpoint. We like the idea of there being this large scale massing that breaks down and continues to break down the closer you get and it relates to more your scale relative to the way that you're viewing it.

 

00;13;15;00 - 00;13;22;07

DP

It really does scale the architecture nicely. So how about the building review with the city? Was that time consuming?

 

00;13;22;09 - 00;13;34;17

JI

Not at all. As I said, we were as of right building. So working through the construction documents, we were also working through permitting at the same time. It was a very easy flow from one stage to the next.

 

00;13;34;19 - 00;13;37;18

DP

Now, did you guys work in 2D and in 3D?

 

00;13;37;26 - 00;13;46;28

JI

Yes. 2D, 3D, physical models, sketches. Things were being passed around the office for a year and a half related to this.

 

00;13;47;01 - 00;13;51;00

DP

Do you work in Revit or AutoCAD or ArchiCAD?

 

00;13;51;02 - 00;13;58;26

JI

We're primarily a Revit office. We use Revit for our project delivery. We also do a bit of work in AutoCAD and in Rhino.

 

00;13;59;02 - 00;14;03;24

DP

So when you did presentation with the clients, did you show them three dimensional images and models?

 

00;14;04;01 - 00;14;31;01

JI

Yes, there is a lot of modeling. We actually very early on in the project, we built this eight foot long model of the Greenpoint waterfront, and we were working through just several dozens of iterations of the massing, the two towers, a one tower option, and we were all just spread out around the table, around this model, flipping through the different massings and trying to figure out what worked best with what else we were seeing on the waterfront.

 

00;14;31;04 - 00;14;33;00

DP

I bet the client really enjoyed that.

 

00;14;33;00 - 00;14;36;26

JI

It was a blast. Every office meeting was always a mini party.

 

00;14;36;28 - 00;14;57;08

DP

Yeah, clients love models. I mean, they love 3D images. I'm sure when you showed them these three dimensional images, particularly the towers, which are really quite beautiful, the way the facades step back and move forward. And they're just, the architecture is very interesting. So I'm sure they really enjoyed it, especially when they saw the first renderings.

 

00;14;57;10 - 00;15;12;11

JI

Yeah, again, it was a lot of fun and all these models were tactile and interactive, so it gave us a chance to move some of these blocks and figure out the correct portion, the correct distance that we'd want things to overhang to shift and slide past each other.

 

00;15;12;14 - 00;15;17;06

DP

So how many people worked on the project? How many people were involved in the office on the team?

 

00;15;17;11 - 00;15;44;07

JI

It fluctuated throughout phase. I think at the height of it we had around 12 people total, and that's assembling the full construction package, Through concept the team was a bit smaller, we maybe 4 to 6 and this is also spread out between a few of the different locations of our offices. So we had a team in our San Juan, Puerto Rico office and a team at our New York office, both working hand in hand on this.

 

00;15;44;09 - 00;16;06;15

DP

You know, as an aside, what's really pretty, the red brick that you guys use there, there are a lot of lighter bricks in that facade. And so it makes it look almost pink in color. But you get up close to it and you can see a lot of variations in these colors, in the red colored brick, a lot of like I'll call it value, but it's light and dark red brick.

 

00;16;06;18 - 00;17;10;16

JI

For that facade we're using a blended brick and we wanted that to echo some of the red brick buildings that you already see on West Street on the waterfront. That was kind of our launching point for coming up with this brick palette. We knew that there was going to be a red brick building. We knew that it was going to be relative to those warehouses and then the other two bricks were kind of an offshoot, based on how we wanted to frame this story of the building as you move around the site.

 

So to the north, there's a lighter brick. It's something that we see as a little more modern. We try to keep the tones of the brick and mortar and the sills and other materials a little more homogenous and then on the flip side of that, on the southern street of the building Java Street, we wanted to use something with a bit more variation.

 

We wanted a higher contrast between the grout and the brick, a higher variability within the bricks. And that's something that we saw as a little more nostalgic to some of those worker housings and the smaller buildings that you begin to see as you move more inland.

 

00;17;10;18 - 00;17;16;27

DP

Now the colors work very nicely together. So where are you guys in the construction phase on this? Forgive me for not knowing.

 

00;17;16;29 - 00;17;33;05

JI

Where currently pouring the concrete structure. We're up to the sixth floor now, I believe. We have gotten all of the brick pallets finalized. We've gotten all the precast facades cast. It's really kind of a game of assembly at this point.

 

00;17;33;07 - 00;17;41;28

DP

So, Jeremy, you're a young architect. I'm sure you're learning a lot. As you go along here, anything memorable so far?

 

00;17;42;01 - 00;18;01;06

JI

It's so hard to pick one thing. This entire project has just been an incredible learning experience. Admittedly, early in my career, there's so many different conditions, so much to consider with a project of this size that I really feel like I got a good breadth of exposure to so many facets of the industry now.

 

00;18;01;06 - 00;18;03;18

DP

Do you get to be out in the field a lot?

 

00;18;03;21 - 00;18;27;22

JI

Yes. Every week we have our owner and constructor meetings. We have bank walks on the side and really get to see the progress and it's moving so quickly, month by month. And also I live not too far from the site, so every week I try to make it out there and just see what's going on, see what's changed, and it's kind of humbling just seeing something come to life.

 

00;18;27;25 - 00;18;46;27

DP

I would imagine something this large, I've never worked on a project that's larger than a residential home. I mean, I've worked on schools early on, but working on a job that's this big has got to be humbling and profound and extraordinarily interesting all at the same time.

 

00;18;46;29 - 00;19;07;27

JI

Yeah, it's been challenging, but I think throughout all of it I've been extremely lucky just having in the support of a firm like Marvel as well as just an incredibly talented team of consultants, of engineers and clients who have really just been supportive and on board and actively participating in every step of the design.

 

00;19;08;00 - 00;19;12;29

DP

So I'd like to ask most of our guests, did you guys have any challenges finding a mason?

 

00;19;13;02 - 00;19;27;21

JI

No, actually, the mason that we've gone with bundling, we've worked on a few of our projects with them before, and the second that they came on board with the project, our confidence kind of skyrocketed. Just because we've had such a good experience with them previously.

 

00;19;27;23 - 00;19;37;24

DP

For all those young architects out there looking for work at a firm that they admire, how might you recommend young people find the right job?

 

00;19;37;26 - 00;20;22;06

JI

Well, the right job is kind of a hard thing to qualify. I think the best advice I could give on that is to just put your name out there wherever you can. Don't be shy in asking people for connections and asking people to kind of put you in a position that you think would be beneficial to you. With Marvel, actually, I had a friend from school who knew someone, and through them I was able to get my resume and I actually don't think Marvel was actively hiring. But I got the interview and it went very well. I loved everyone on the team and they loved me and I think I really landed in my right place. But I encourage everyone to really put yourself out to as many places as you can so you can see what fits for you and what works for you.

 

00;20;22;08 - 00;20;41;12

DP

I always kind of wonder is an older guy working in this field now to social media have a benefit in terms of finding work today? That is, is it easier to reach out to people that you simply don't know with your resume and thoughts about, hey, I'd love to work with your firm?

 

00;20;41;15 - 00;21;14;24

JI

Yeah, I think it plays a big part. It's playing an increasing part to Instagram as a way that I see a lot of firms work, a lot of firms putting out calls for applications for either positions or internships. It really increases the amount of exposure and it puts everything in one place where people might just passively see it.

 

And then there's also LinkedIn, where I get so many people messaging me about my experience at Marvel and kind of things that they're looking for, things that they would want to know about if they were to apply for a position or an internship.

 

00;21;14;27 - 00;22;17;12

DP

It's interesting, just as an aside, I never really thought about this, but when you said it puts things in one place, the web really does help them. It sounds really dumb, but to a guy like me who's 55 years old when I was young, you either have to see an architect work in a magazine, you visit their office and you get to see all the photos of all of their work.

 

But the web really does an amazing job of putting absolutely everything in one location, right? So you go, especially an app like Instagram, where you simply open it up, go to a page and you can see all 400 projects or 30 projects or whatever it is, and contact people at the firm in 2 minutes. It really has changed the paradigm for employment or simply for marketing and all these other things.

 

I know it all sounds very obvious, but as I sit here with a young architect, it makes me think that your world is simply very different than what mine used to be.

 

00;22;17;19 - 00;22;30;19

JI

I also think it's democratized in a way. It's given smaller firms a greater opportunity and platform to put their work out that it could be on the same level with the kind of content that you see from much larger firms.

 

00;22;30;22 - 00;22;40;06

DP

I love that. That makes a lot of sense. So, Jeremy, it's been great to have you here. Thank you so much for your time. Where can people go to learn more about Marvel and yourself?

 

00;22;40;06 - 00;22;50;03

JI

Yeah, thank you, Doug. You can visit our website, MarvelDesign.com or also please follow us on Instagram at @Marvel_is_design.

 

00;22;50;05 - 00;22;55;28

DP

All right well, Jeremy, thank you very much again for being here. It's been great to have you as a guest.

 

00;22;55;29 - 00;22;59;28

JI

Yeah. Thank you so much, Doug.