Newtown Creek Water Pollution Control Plant

Polshek Partnership Architects transforms utilitarian infrastructure into an urban asset.

By Joann Gonchar, AIA
This is an excerpt of an article from the March 2009 edition of Architectural Record.

It is a wonder that there aren’t even more traffic jams on the congested stretch of the Long Island Expressway leading to and from Midtown Manhattan. Just to the south of the elevated highway, on the edge of Brooklyn’s gritty industrial waterfront, eight bulbous towers, each 130 feet tall and 80 feet in diameter, come into drivers’ views. The objects appear especially otherworldly at night, when their curved, stainless-steel-clad surfaces are bathed in an almost eerie blue light cast from below, and their interconnecting glass-enclosed aerial walkways glow from within.

The towers look like they might be an apartment complex for visitors from another planet. However, they serve a much more prosaic function: They process sludge removed from New York City wastewater, anaerobically transforming organic matter into a stable substance.

Program

The recently completed tanks, which are egg-shaped digesters, or “ESDs,” as they are known in wastewater lingo, are just one (albeit the most conspicuous) piece of an expansion and upgrade of the Newtown Creek Water Pollution Control Plant. The facility serves a 25-square-mile area in three New York City boroughs, treating 310 million gallons of wastewater each day. The still-under-way $4.5 billion project will bring the 42-year-old plant into compliance with federal standards and provide relief to nearby neighborhoods from odors that emanate from its aeration and thickening tanks. The scope also includes community amenities, such as a waterfront nature walk designed by installation artist George Trakas, and a visitors center with an indoor-outdoor fountain by Vito Acconci.

The shape of the digesters was predetermined by engineering efficiency, but Polshek Partnership Architects (PPA), New York City, designed their skin and the bridgelike maintenance walkways. And they designed the containers that house the many other necessary steps in the wastewater treatment process. The architects also performed another, arguably more important role, helping devise a logic for the 53-acre development.

Even though PPA served as the project’s master planners, contractually they are consultants to a joint venture of three environmental engineers: local firm Hazen & Sawyer, White Plains; New York—based Malcom Pirnie; and Chicago-based Greeley and Hansen. “We were a small tail wagging a very big dog,” says PPA senior design counsel, James Polshek, FAIA.

A requirement that the existing plant never go offline magnified the difficulty of their planning problem. Like a giant game of musical chairs, each component of the expansion needed to be complete and operational before its predecessor could be torn down. Further complicating the design process was the evolving nature of the treatment technology. When PPA started work on the project in 1996, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) was still exploring three different treatment options, each requiring unique infrastructure.

Solution

So that construction could move forward before a treatment technology had been selected, PPA worked with the engineering team to identify facilities common in each of the three scenarios, helping position them on the site. And they worked to maintain the urban street grid within the complex and create view sheds through the site to the Manhattan skyline. In addition, the architects devised an ordering system, or kit of parts, that could adapt to any water treatment technology. This system consists of a palette of durable and corrosion-resistant materials, such as stainless steel and glazed ceramic tile, and a set of building components, including louvers, walkways, and curved roof shapes, that could be combined in various ways to satisfy different needs. They developed a rationale for applying color to enclosures, with green used to designate vertical circulation elements, blue for high bay equipment, and orange for accent buildings, such as the visitors center.

As the last of the plant’s original facilities are replaced over the next five years, the principles established by the architects will continue to be deployed, explains Richard Olcott, FAIA, PPA partner. “Our role was to develop the ground rules,” he says.

Commentary

Although the Newtown Creek complex is still an active construction site, cluttered with cranes and excavation equipment, PPA’s logic is already visible. The kit-of-parts approach is not only evident in the stunning digesters, but also in the many other less-conspicuous structures that house pump stations, transformers, centrifuges, and disinfection facilities. These enclosures are crisp and bold. They are colorful while still being dignified. In short, they seem well-suited for their industrial environs.

However, the final results of PPA’s strategy will not be evident for quite some time, perhaps not until decades after the last of the planned replacement facilities is complete. If the architects have been successful, the DEP should be able to deploy the same strategy to adapt the plant as technology evolves and new regulations are adopted. This process of continuous change is unavoidable, says Olcott, who compares Newtown Creek’s upgrade to painting the Golden Gate Bridge. “Once it’s done, you have to start all over again.”

Formal name of project: Newtown Creek Water Pollution Control Plant

Location: Brooklyn, New York

Completion Date: 2014 (entire project)

Site size: 53 acres

Total construction cost: $4.5 billion

Owner: New York City Department of Environmental Protection

Architect:
Polshek Partnership Architects, LLP
320 West 13th Street
New York, New York 10014
212.807.7171 tel
212.807.5917 fax
www.polshek.com

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