New public plaza Domino Square opens on the Williamsburg waterfront
Photos courtesy of Daniel Levin for Two Trees Management
The Domino Sugar Factory site in Williamsburg gained more park space this week. Domino Square, a one-acre public plaza between the new condo One Domino Square and the office building The Refinery at Domino, has officially opened. Designed as a civic space by landscape architecture firm Field Operations, the new plaza offers community events and programming year-round, from salsa nights and farmers markets to an ice skating rink, the first to ever open on Williamsburg’s waterfront.
As the final piece of Domino Park, which opened in 2018, the new space measures 33,000 square feet, or about a full city block, according to developer Two Trees Management.
Domino Square features a bowl-like interior with a lifted edge with plantings and tiered seating. The southwest corner offers more intimate seating shaped by raised planting beds, along with a new overlook facing the rest of the park and the Williamsburg Bridge.
Studio Casdena designed a retail arcade made from a series of cast-in-place concrete piers along the street edge that frame the spaces and create entry points to the park.
An ice skating rink will open at the park this November, becoming the first rink to open on the Williamsburg waterfront.
“Domino Square completes the public open space promise to the community, enhances access to the neighborhood and waterfront, and offers a distinctive view of the Refinery building,” Lisa Tziona Switkin, Partner at Field Operations said.
“Its design creates an urban room that enriches the vibrancy and day-to-day life of Domino Park with welcoming, porous, and lush gardens along its edges and a central communal space that allows for expanded year-round programming.”
The new park sits next to The Refinery at Domino, formerly a 19th-century factory transformed into a net zero carbon office space, and One Domino Square, a 39-story tower with 160 condos and a 55-story rental with 400 units designed by Annabelle Selldorf.
The opening of Domino Square marks the completion of the final public portion of the Domino master plan, which has added thousands of new homes, park space, and offices to the former industrial stretch of waterfront.
“From the moment we bought Domino, we have been focused on creating one of the most highly utilized and diverse open spaces in all of Brooklyn,” Jed Walentas, Principal at Two Trees Management, said.
“We have obviously been thrilled with how the community has responded to and adopted Domino Park. Now, with the opening of the Square, we will be able to accommodate a broader array of activities that will attract neighbors from all walks of life. Domino Square will enhance everyone’s life in South Williamsburg. We are really proud of what we have built and excited to see its potential as it evolves.”
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