Echelon Film Production Studios
Located at two Brooklyn sites in Red Hook and Bushwick, COOKFOX’s designs for Echelon Film Production Studios weaves together local contexts and past precedents into an urban, future-oriented building. Red Hook and Bushwick, on opposing ends of north Brooklyn, are connected by the B57 bus—as well as a shared industrial identity that has facilitated the lower rents that lure creative types, allowing the arts to flourish there. No building typology better encapsulates that juxtaposition than a film studio, incubator to the most industrial of the arts.
While large warehouses are not usually considered friendly additions to the streetscape, our design mirrors the buildings’ urban contexts. A series of precast concrete panels, each measuring eight feet wide by 54 feet tall, cover the structures. The facade’s ripple pattern is designed to catch light and create shadow patterns that change with sunlight angles. The pattern alludes to the nearby undulating waves (in Red Hook the water is just one block away); others might see the shapes and shadows of a theater curtain. Light fixtures, located at horizontal reveals between panels, will illuminate the sidewalk, improving the pedestrian experience at night. The precast concrete is interrupted at programmatic changes, such as lobby and garage entrances, with a white and black brick facade in Red Hook, and an all-white treatment in Bushwick. The Red Hook location will house four sound stages, while the larger Bushwick site will house six. Both studios include below-grade parking spots, minimizing traffic disruptions on the street.
The facilities each offer four floors of office space, carpentry shops, and dressing, wardrobe, and hair and make-up rooms. Notably for a production studio, the latter rooms will be windowed, allowing occupants direct access to sunlight. This common sense but often overlooked benefit results in a more flexible, healthy workplace. At the higher levels, the buildings setback, enlivening the massing and creating space for outdoor terraces, planted roofs—allowing employees access to nature—and photovoltaic installations. Each site offers sweeping views of Brooklyn and Manhattan.
New York’s glittering skyline was born out of its gritty, industrial past. That identity survives in part through the adaptive reuse of buildings like Terminal Warehouse, Chelsea Market, and St. John’s Terminal, former factories transformed by the needs of the city’s current professional milieu. But it endures most directly through New York’s vital industrial sector, whose beating heart moved from lower Manhattan to outer borough neighborhoods like Red Hook and Bushwick decades ago. Today, that identity is in a state of constant flux. Our design for Echelon Film Production Studios acknowledges this dynamic—seeking to meet the needs of a city that is always on the move, with ever-changing demands.