“The building is organized around efficiency of workflow, facilitating not just individual tasks but series of tasks,” says Adam Gordon, the managing partner of Wildflower Ltd, the developer of the project. “I call it poetry meets performance,” he says. “We wanted to introduce moments of surprise and delight, creating an architecture that supports artists.” Gordon had never developed a studio project before, so he brought in actor Robert De Niro as a partner to provide knowledge of the film and television business. A lifelong New Yorker, De Niro wanted to strengthen the city’s capacity to support entertainment production, which had faltered after the Covid pandemic and an actors’ strike in 2023. Raphael De Niro, the actor’s son and a real estate broker, is also a partner in the development group. Together, they saw the need for a new ground-up facility that offers greater efficiencies than operations at places like Kaufman Astoria Studios or Silvercup Studios, which occupy repurposed industrial buildings.

“It’s a factory of fantasy,” states Bjarke Ingels, BIG’s founder and a partner in charge of the project. “Its logic is about orchestrating the flow of trucks and moving things in and out.” Due to its size, its role in supporting a particular industry, and its publicly accessible outdoor space, “It’s a piece of social infrastructure,” says Ingels. In these respects, it relates to other BIG projects such as CopenHill, the waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen that doubles as a ski slope, and The Plus, a large furniture factory in Norway that offers hiking and camping on its wooded site.

Rooms offer views of the skyline. Photo © Laurian Ghinițoiu, click to enlarge.

Because soundstages need to be isolated in terms of both daylight and acoustics, the building wants to be a giant fortress protected by solid walls. “We aimed to make it welcoming to everyone—production crews and talent alike,” says Daniel Sundlin, one of the BIG partners in charge of the project. “We needed to soften the architecture and break down the scale.” To address the first concern, the architects placed enormous glass walls at the vehicular entry and at the end of the 30-foot-high, L-shaped indoor street. They also carved out terraces from the bulk of the building at one end of the indoor street on the first floor and on the seventh floor adjacent to a VIP greenroom, so both can enjoy views of the creek and the Manhattan skyline beyond. “We treated the interiors almost as a hospitality project,” adds Sundlin.

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Occupiable terraces have been carved out of the building (1 and top of page), which houses several expansive stages (2). Photos © Laurian Ghinițoiu

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But one of the biggest challenges was figuring out how to wrap the building to block out noise, from busy streets and nearby LaGuardia Airport, while engaging the neighborhood and creating visual interest. The architects eventually devised a subtly pleated checkerboard of charcoal-colored precast concrete that alternates smooth panels with ones that have exposed aggregate, all attached to a structure made of 33 steel trusses. The two textures of the panels and the rippling profile of the elevations catch light in ever-changing ways during the course of a day and animate what might otherwise have been a dull, opaque building envelope. Collaborating with the firm Dirtworks, BIG designed a waterfront promenade, with seating and flood-resistant landscaping that is accessible to the public. Bioswales and porous paving help make the outdoor areas resilient in the face of climate change.

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Folded metal panels (3) echo the checkerboard pattern of the concrete facade (4). Photos © Laurian Ghinițoiu

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Echoing the building’s precast exterior, the walls of the indoor street are dressed in a pleated checkerboard of solid and perforated stainless-steel panels. In addition to being stacked, the 150-by-125-foot soundstages are arranged so that as many as three can open into each other for large productions. “Designing the project was like solving a Tetris puzzle,” in which horizontal and vertical pieces need to fit together, says Tracey Coffin, the project architect.

“We named the company Wildflower after a Tom Petty song and to create the image of something beautiful popping up of its own accord and providing a moment of delight,” says Gordon. Rising from Astoria’s industrial landscape, the project, indeed, comes as a surprise, its lively facades expressing both heft and dexterity and its planted edge along Luyster Creek offering a pleasant respite from all the hard surfaces nearby. Like a circus elephant, the massive building proves to be more graceful and engaging than you would think.

Image courtesy Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)

Image courtesy Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)