The banks of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal are no strangers to change. Once a polluted artery of industrial waste, this stretch of South Brooklyn has in recent years become a canvas for environmental restoration and architectural reinvention. Now, the area prepares to welcome a new architectural landmark: a 27-story tower at 175 Third Street, conceived by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) in connect with dencityworks | architecture, Charney Companies, and Tavros. Replacing a shelved 2023 design, this ambitious project redefines the intersection of community, verticality, and landscape—ushering in a new chapter for the post-industrial waterfront.
A Vertical Urban Village: The Concept of the “Three-Dimensional Neighborhood”
Bjarke Ingels describes the structure not simply as a residential tower, but as a “three-dimensional neighborhood.” Rather than follow the archetype of the monolithic high-rise, BIG’s design consists of stacked, terraced concrete volumes that chisel and shift, creating dynamic chamfers and alcoves. These architectural maneuvers do not merely exist for aesthetic delight—they serve a functional duality: to accommodate the zoning restrictions of Gowanus while promoting human-scale interaction with urban form.
The central motif is one of modular rationality shaped by contextual responsiveness. As these blocks rise to 27 stories, they frame a stepped central courtyard, plunging down toward a waterfront park designed by Field Operations in connection with NYC Parks. It is a vision that is civic and architectural, immersive and residential—rendering vertical density less as congestion and more as orchestration.
The Geometry of Life: Chamfers, Terraces, and Urban Complexity
In typical BIG fashion, the building is neither static nor uniform. Instead, its form articulates the language of urban complexity: chamfered corners open spaces that allow for entrances, balconies, and micro-parks across multiple elevations. These decisions encourage spontaneous human interaction, embedding possibilities for cafés, benches, courtyards, and community nooks in unexpected places.
Martin Voelkle, a partner at BIG, articulates this approach as one led by “programmatic needs and contextual zoning constraints.” The structure’s U-shape, descending toward the canal, acts as both a visual gesture and social amplifier, making space for panoramic skyline views, while linking 2nd and 3rd Streets via green corridors. Each terraced volume extends the possibility for both privacy and collectivity, rendering the architecture a living system rather than a built monument.
Public Space as Anchor: The Waterfront Park and Urban Integration
Integral to the project’s identity is its waterfront park, designed by James Corner’s Field Operations—the same landscape firm behind New York’s High Line and San Francisco’s Presidio Tunnel Tops. Here, the canal is not hidden behind infrastructure but embraced as an ecological and social asset. The park is designed to flow into the building’s plinth, creating an uninterrupted experiential field from boardwalk to building entrance.
A crucial narrative within this integration is one of ecological redemption. The Gowanus Canal, once declared a Superfund site, has in recent years become a testing ground for urban ecology. By pairing architectural development with landscape regeneration, the 175 Third Street project elevates the idea of co-habitation: where the built and the natural coalesce rather than compete.
From Sculptural to Systemic: Departure from the 2023 Proposal
The current proposal replaces an earlier, more sculpturally abstract design from 2023. Originally commissioned by developer RFR, the previous iteration leaned into expressive deconstruction—an aesthetic that leaned heavily on form over function. In April 2025, after RFR sold the land for approximately $160 million USD, the new ownership—Charney Companies and Tavros—engaged BIG to reimagine the parcel not as an icon, but as urban infrastructure designed to serve community, sustainability, and scale.
The shift is telling. Where the original concept appeared as an artistic intervention, the updated design functions more like an ecosystem. It integrates 1,000+ residential units, of which approximately 250 will be designated affordable housing, a significant component in a borough plagued by gentrification and displacement. The project is thus not only a matter of architectural showmanship—it is a socioeconomic gesture woven into the Gowanus Wharf revitalization masterplan.
Developer Vision: Charney & Tavros’ Gowanus Portfolio
This development is the fourth major Gowanus endeavor by Charney and Tavros. Collectively, the developers’ vision encompasses over 2 million square feet of new construction in the neighborhood. Their strategic urban philosophy leans heavily on mixed-use density, accessibility to public amenities, and cultural resonance. Through projects like this, the duo are not merely erecting buildings—they are building narratives of place, positioning Gowanus as a post-industrial Brooklyn outpost remade through design literacy and community integration.
Importantly, these moves are unfolding during a pivotal transformation of Gowanus: following its rezoning in 2021, the neighborhood has welcomed a wave of residential construction, often backed by inclusionary housing incentives. BIG’s participation signals both architectural credibility and urban ambition—a balance rarely struck at such scale.
The Metaphysics of Density: Life Between the Blocks
At the pithy of this project lies an ambition to reframe density as something humane. In urban development discourse, “density” is often wielded as a metric, a necessary evil in the pursuit of housing supply. BIG’s vision, by contrast, imagines density as a form of interactivity—a way to unlock new formats of public-private life within vertical environments.
This is most evident in the building’s terraced geometry, which opens space for pedestrian crosswalks, recreational landings, and garden niches along the facade. It is a choreographed messiness—echoing traditional town squares, updated for a vertically layered century. The “three-dimensional neighborhood” is not just a metaphor. It’s a literal reshaping of how architecture can negotiate the boundaries between inside and outside, citizen and skyline.
Sustainability and Resilience: Environmental Performance as Aesthetic
Though not all technical specs have been released, it’s expected that the project will incorporate high-performance systems, potentially including LEED certification, passive cooling strategies, and stormwater management designed in tandem with the waterfront restoration. As Field Operations has previously demonstrated with projects like Freshkills Park and Domino Park, green infrastructure can be as much about visual identity as it is about resilience.
The canal-facing façade, in particular, will be critical for mitigating flood risk—a looming concern in low-lying Brooklyn. Through a layered design strategy, it is likely that the development will embed bioswales, green roofs, and potentially even tidal buffer zones to aid in managing the dual pressures of urban runoff and sea-level rise.
Broader Implications: Gowanus as Urban Laboratory
The Gowanus Canal redevelopment—often viewed with both excitement and skepticism—serves as a litmus test for New York’s future urbanism. Projects like 175 Third Street are not isolated gestures; they’re part of a mosaic attempting to reconcile heritage and innovation, density and livability, profit and public good.
By commissioning BIG, a firm known for megaprojects that span continents and typologies, Charney and Tavros elevate the stakes. This is no longer just about Gowanus. It’s about what the post-industrial city can become: porous, participatory, and park-oriented.
Building Tomorrow’s Brooklyn
With its stacked modules and cascading parkscape, the 175 Third Street tower articulates a new mode of civic architecture. It’s not just a place to live—it’s a system to encounter, to inhabit, and to interpret. It gives architectural form to the ideals of shared public space, vertical community, and adaptive urban design.
As Gowanus sheds its polluted past, this project stands as a symbol of its regenerative potential. Not through spectacle, but through synergy—between landscape and building, between private investment and public interest, between imagination and infrastructure.
Bjarke Ingels’ latest New York addition is not a monument. It is a manifesto: one that declares that architecture must no longer merely occupy space, but activate it—for everyone, at every level, facing both sky and canal.
