Brooklyn Tower

The Brooklyn Tower is a Contemporary skyscraper designed in 2015 by SHoP Architects, and built between 2017 and 2023 in New York, NY.

Brooklyn Tower is not the only name you might know this building by though. It is common for companies to want to attach their names to iconic buildings when they move in, or for the general public to come up with nicknames, and this one is no exception. The Brooklyn Tower is also known, or has been known as, Flatbush Tower, or 9 Dekalb Avenue.

Its precise street address is 9 DeKalb Ave, New York, NY. You can also find it on the map here.

The Brooklyn Tower incorporates at its base the historic Dime Savings Bank building, designed by Mowbray and Uffinger and built between 1906 and 1908, later expanded by Halsey, McCormack, and Helmer, and designated as a New York City Landmark in 1994.

At the time of its completion in 2023 the Brooklyn Tower incorporated solutions that were quite advanced at the time, these included the use of "augmented reality" (AR) technologies during its construction to allow the visualization of the tower for sales purposes.

Odor and airflow control systems were also installed in the trash chutes to mitigate unpleasant odors.

SHoP Architects was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the Brooklyn Tower a reality:

• WSP in charge of Structural Engineering
• JDS Construction Group as the Main Contractor
• MW Skins in charge of Facade Consultancy
• JDS Development Group as the Main Developer
• Jaros Baum & Bolles in charge of MEP Engineering
• HMWhite in charge of Landscape Architecture
• Gachot Studios and Woods Bagot in charge of Interior Design

The Brooklyn Tower can be categorized as a Contemporary building.

That being said, and even thought being a contemporary building, probably taking advantage of modern materials, construction techniques, and technology, the design of the Brooklyn Tower is inspired by the art-deco style.

The Brooklyn Tower uses a frame structure made of reinforced concrete columns and beams.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade uses a non-load bearing curtain wall system. This means the curtain wall modules are anchored to the building's structural frame, typically by being attached to the edge of the floor slabs. The curtain wall system connects to the slabs using brackets, anchors, and mullions, which transfer the loads imposed by wind and temperature changes, to the building's primary structural elements.

This setup allows the curtain wall to accommodate differential movement between the facade and the structural frame, such as thermal expansion, floor deflection, or sway from wind forces. This system's integration with the slab edges also allows for continuous insulation and weatherproofing layers.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features bright bronze-colored vertical molded elements over a black-tinted-glass curtain wall. This design emphasizes the verticality of the building in a way that was characteristic of the art-deco movement.

The tower incorporates a series of "wind floors" throughout its structure, open to the exterior on all sides, designed to allow strong gusts of wind to pass through and minimize the building's sway. One of the most notable is located on the 66th floor, where residents have access to a basketball court, considered the highest in the world .

Another material found at the Brooklyn Tower is white oak, used on the walls of the two-story atrium, with a carved geometric pattern, mirroring the contours of the tower's facade.