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In Brooklyn, a Pink Building Stands Out
A new building in Fort Greene was designed to encourage a more intimate living space, according to the builders.
At the intersection of Myrtle and Vanderbilt Avenues in Brooklyn, a restaurant and fish market sit on one side of Myrtle, while townhouses and an apartment building line Vanderbilt. Some of these buildings are made from brick, and most are neutral toned. But at the corner, one building is an outlier: It’s pink.
That pink building — on the site of a former gas station at 144 Vanderbilt Avenue in Fort Greene — is slated to be completed at the beginning of next year.The building’s rippled edges, stacked silhouette and varying height stand out in stark contrast to anything else nearby. Tankhouse, a Brooklyn-based developer, collaborated on the project, to be known as 144 Vanderbilt, with SO-IL, an architecture firm, and Ted Kane, the project’s architect of record.
Sam Alison-Mayne and Sebastian Mendez, the owners of Tankhouse, are aware of the reputation that developers have: They go into a neighborhood, build something and then leave. That’s why, Mr. Alison-Mayne said, they try to build in familiar neighborhoods, like their own. He lives nearby on Willoughby Avenue, and Mr. Mendez lives in Gowanus.
“It’s really tempting to think that you can develop anywhere,” said Mr. Mendez, who founded Tankhouse in 2013 with Mr. Alison-Mayne. “I think it’s a little difficult because you just don’t know where you are. You don’t know what’s going on, and you don’t know what the issues are.”
Their familiarity with the area extends to some members of the project’s team, most of whom live nearby. (The architects from SO-IL live on Adelphi Street, two streets over.)
