Flatiron on Flatbush

Coming soon to New York, the city’s first all-electric skyscraper. Also imminent, the city’s first public school designed to Passivhaus standards. Not coincidentally, they’re both part of a single full-block development where Boerum Hill meets Downtown Brooklyn, mixing not only use but also scale, massing, and sustainability strategies to dramatic effect. Prominently sited at the pointy corner of Flatbush Avenue and State Street, the first phase of Alloy Block, slated for completion early next year, is an unusual union of a high-rise residential tower—a sleek, flatiron-shaped wedding cake with slight setbacks on two of its three facades—and a mid-rise school, with triple-glazed windows set in the dark-gray brick of its airtight envelope.

At a recent construction tour organized by the Urban Design Forum, AJ Pires, president of Alloy Development (and board member of UDF), related that they began assembling the site back in 2015. “As both the architect and the developer, we [attended] over 120 community meetings to listen to people’s concerns and iterate with our design…