Spring Street Salt Shed / Dattner Architects

Architects: Dattner Architects
Location: New York, NY, United States
Associated Architects: WXY Architecture + Urban Design.
Lighting Design: Domingo Gonzalez Associates
Landscape: Abel Bainnson Butz
Area: 431300.0 ft2
Project Year: 2015
Photographs: Albert Vecerka/ESTO, Field Condition, Michael Anton, Pavel Bendov

Structural Engineer: The Burns Group
Civil & Mep Engineers: Greeley and Hanson
Facade: Front Inc.
Geotechnical Engineer: Langan Engineering
Vertical Transportation: Van Deusen and Associates
Surveyor: Maitra Associates
Commissioning: Horizon Engineering Associates
Architectural Concrete Consultant: Reginald Hough Associates
Traffic: Philip Habib & Associates
Architectural Specifications: Robert Schwartz Associates
Cost Consultant: J.C. Estimating
Contractor (Garage): DeMatteis/Darcon
General Contractor: Oliveira Contracting, Inc.
Construction Manager: Turner Construction Company
Clients: NYC Department of Sanitation; NYC Department of Design and Construction
Garage: 425,000 sf
Salt Shed: 6,300 sf

Text description provided by the architects. The Manhattan Districts 1/2/5 Garage, overlooking the Hudson River at the corner of Spring Street and West Street, houses three district garages for the NYC Department of Sanitation. The new multi-story building accommodates over 150 sanitation vehicles including trucks, front-end loaders, salt spreaders, heavy-equipment wreckers, and personnel vehicles; separate vehicle wash and personnel facilities for each district; and centralized fueling and repair facilities. The double-skin façade wraps the curtain wall with 2,600 custom, perforated, metal fins, vertically articulating and lighting the building’s massing. Operable for the occupied spaces, the fins reduce solar heat gain and glare, create an ethereal wrapper to obscure mechanical louvers, and shield the view of headlights from neighbors. An extensive 1.5 acre green roof softens views from neighboring buildings, protects the roof membrane, and enhances storm water retention and thermal performance.

A benchmark project for NYC’s Active Design program, the garage has achieved LEED Gold certification. As the first LEED rated Department of Sanitation facility, an interactive and iterative design process was critical to establishing project goals. The team worked closely with DSNY and a Community Board approvals process, through a series of workshops to develop the program requirements for a vertically organized multi-district garage. Through this process, opportunities were identified for combining shared spaces, reducing floor to floor heights, and optimizing circulation efficiency.

Directly across Spring Street to the north, the Salt Shed’s crystalline, faceted planes enliven this highly visible structure, acting as a counterpoint to the diaphanous, scrim-like façade of the Garage. The cast-in-place concrete structure tapers toward the bottom—creating more pedestrian space—and rises from a glazed moat that will be illuminated at night. Rising nearly 70 feet, the shed houses 5,000 tons of salt and create an iconic landmark at this important intersection. Within the year of opening, the Manhattan Districts 1/2/5 Garage & Salt Shed have become a source of neighborhood pride.