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The headquarters of
Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
, an American public benefit corporation and
crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by cro ...
platform for creative projects, are in Greenpoint, a neighborhood of
Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. The three-story, open plan building is part of the
Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory The Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory is a former pencil factory complex in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York City. Designated as a historic district by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (NYCLPC) in 2007, it is composed of nine build ...
, which operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was later designated as a
historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from cer ...
. Kickstarter purchased the building in 2011 after reinvesting of a
venture round A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among ...
to establish a home for the company, a nontraditional investment for an Internet startup but aligned with the company's long-term priorities. The building underwent an extensive renovation between 2011 and 2013. Staff moved from Kickstarter's
Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...
offices in January 2014 and inaugurated the headquarters several months later with a block party. Kickstarter's renovation preserved the shell of the building, which was all that remained from its prior owner. The work to restore the façade and retain its
arrested decay Arrested decay is a term coined by the U.S. State of California, to explain how it would preserve its Bodie State Historic Park. A more common application of this concept is the preservation of war ruins as memorials. United States At Bo ...
received two New York-based awards. In the signature sustainable and arboreal style of the renovation's architect, Ole Sondresen, the project adaptively reused the building's frame and recycled other materials sourced locally. Sondresen designed the headquarters around a central, glass courtyard. Designer Camille Finefrock, who also was responsible for the interior design, outfitted the courtyard with native ferns and shrubs. The space includes a rooftop garden, library, 74-seat theater, and was designed to afford staff a variety of workspace options. The building's street faces are composed of three different façades in graffitied red brick, constructed from right to left, starting with the
Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...
style of a factory built in 1860 and purchased by Faber a decade later. Faber hired the Brooklyn architect Theobald Engelhardt to make the center façade in Renaissance Revival style. The easternmost portion was built in the German Romanesque Revival style. The renovators repaired and shored this mismatched façade to preserve rather than overwrite the anachronistic updates it had received since its creation. The façade restorers studied each deteriorated joint to create replacement mortar equivalent in composition. The company closed its offices during the
COVID-19 pandemic in New York City The first case of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City was confirmed on March 1, 2020, though later research showed that the novel coronavirus had been circulating in New York City since January, with cases of community transmission confirme ...
and offered them for sale.


History

Eberhard Faber, the great-grandson of pencil entrepreneur Kaspar Faber, traveled to the United States, where he bought
Eastern redcedar ''Juniperus virginiana'', also known as red cedar, eastern red cedar, Virginian juniper, eastern juniper, red juniper, and other local names, is a species of juniper native to eastern North America from southeastern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico a ...
and, in New York City, opened a
stationery Stationery refers to commercially manufactured writing materials, including cut paper, envelopes, writing implements, continuous form paper, and other office supplies. Stationery includes materials to be written on by hand (e.g., letter pape ...
store and the country's first pencil factory. The factory was established in eastern
Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildi ...
in 1866, near the current site of the
headquarters of the United Nations zh, 联合国总部大楼french: Siège des Nations uniesrussian: Штаб-квартира Организации Объединённых Наций es, Sede de las Naciones Unidas , image = Midtown Manhattan Skyline 004.jpg , im ...
. However, after a factory fire in 1872, Faber established the new
Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory The Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory is a former pencil factory complex in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York City. Designated as a historic district by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (NYCLPC) in 2007, it is composed of nine build ...
at a larger location in
Greenpoint, Brooklyn Greenpoint is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, in the U.S. state of New York. It is bordered on the southwest by Williamsburg at Bushwick Inlet Park and McCarren Park; on the southeast by the Brookly ...
. That complex expanded to eight buildings through the 1890s. Faber's children split the company from its German parent in 1898 and remained in Greenpoint until 1956, when it moved to Pennsylvania. The
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...
designated the complex as the Eberhard Faber Historic District in 2008.
Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
was in contract to purchase a portion of the complex by 2011. The two-story, building had been gutted by its previous owner in the mid-1980s with failed plans of creating a high-rise hotel and nine-story addition. Kickstarter, which was founded two years prior, purchased the building for and planned to spend an additional on its renovation, as a portion of it had raised through a recent
venture round A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among ...
. Kickstarter co-founder and chairman Perry Chen said that their choice of investment in real estate reflected the company's long-term outlook, as they hoped to remain there in perpetuity. The choice to for the company to purchase its own building was rare among Internet startups, as was the choice to relocate away from Manhattan to a nondescript, industrial area of Brooklyn. The company had previously rented three narrow floors of a dilapidated
tenement building A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. They are common on the British Isles, particularly in Scotland. In the medieval Old Town, i ...
in Manhattan's
Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...
. Kickstarter will remain
fully remote Remote work, also called work from home (WFH), work from anywhere, telework, remote job, mobile work, and distance work is an employment arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work, such as an office building, war ...
following the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
and does not plan to have a central office. The property is listed for sale for $29,500,000.


Design

All that remained of the building, when purchased by Kickstarter, was its raw shell in
arrested decay Arrested decay is a term coined by the U.S. State of California, to explain how it would preserve its Bodie State Historic Park. A more common application of this concept is the preservation of war ruins as memorials. United States At Bo ...
. Behind its graffitied red brick façade, light shined through holes in its makeshift roof to illuminate a space where pigeons flew and rainwater puddled. Ole Sondresen, the Norwegian-born, New York-based architect behind the renovation, recalled how the building evoked a "dramatic and magical" feeling and, in his signature sustainable and arboreal style, sought to retain as much of its experience and materials as possible. Sondresen adaptively reused multiple elements of the remaining building. He bordered a multi-floor, central courtyard using the roof's original, industrial
trusses A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembla ...
, and hung the courtyard's window façades off of repurposed trusses. Around the building's entrance, Sondresen kept the historic lintels,
bollard A bollard is a sturdy, short, vertical post. The term originally referred to a post on a ship or quay used principally for mooring boats. It now also refers to posts installed to control road traffic and posts designed to prevent automotive ...
s, and
arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vau ...
es. Separately, another architect worked to preserve the mismatched, dilapidated façade. For the externally sourced building materials, Sondresen chose sustainable options to reduce the construction's
carbon footprint A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, service, place or product, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Greenhouse gases, including the carbon-containing gases carbo ...
: reclaimed wood, recycled
denim Denim is a sturdy cotton warp-faced textile in which the weft passes under two or more warp threads. This twill weaving produces a diagonal ribbing that distinguishes it from cotton duck. While a denim predecessor known as dungaree has been p ...
for insulation, and recycled
fly ash Fly ash, flue ash, coal ash, or pulverised fuel ash (in the UK) plurale tantum: coal combustion residuals (CCRs)is a coal combustion product that is composed of the particulates (fine particles of burned fuel) that are driven out of coal-fired ...
in the building's concrete. The theater's seats were recovered from a shuttered Midwest venue. Sondresen estimated that the majority of construction materials came from a 20-mile radius. Camille Finefrock designed the building's gardens and interiors. The courtyard garden at the heart of the building was designed as a serene "portrait of the woods" for staff to connect with the nature that historically grew at the building's site through their nearest window. The courtyard features plants indigenous to Long Island and the Northeast, with ferns, swamp azalea, river birches, and a meditation stone beneath a redbud tree. Sondresen compared the layout to a Renaissance
palazzo A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...
where the building is lit from inside: Three of the courtyard's four walls are glass, and the fourth is patinated
Corten steel Weathering steel, often referred to by the genericised trademark COR-TEN steel and sometimes written without the hyphen as corten steel, is a group of steel alloys which were developed to eliminate the need for painting, and form a stable rus ...
with a Japanese-style
rain chain Rain chains ( ja, 鎖樋, or ', See rendaku for why multiple pronunciations. literally "chain-gutter") are alternatives to a downspout. They are widely used in Japan. Their purpose is largely decorative, to make a water feature out of the transp ...
. Finefrock designed the rooftop garden in sandy soil to reflect the building's indigenous environment and its proximity to the ocean, with elements from the Long Island Pine Barrens, coastal plants,
beach plum ''Prunus maritima'', the beach plum, is a species of plum native to the East Coast of the United States. It is a choice wild edible and its few pests and salt tolerance make it a resilient fruit crop for degraded lands and urban soils. Descript ...
trees. A gravel path divides in two and allows a user the choice between a direct route across the roof or a more meandering enclosed philosopher's walk. Also on the roof are fruit, vegetable, and
cut flower Cut may refer to: Common uses * The act of cutting, the separation of an object into two through acutely-directed force ** A type of wound ** Cut (archaeology), a hole dug in the past ** Cut (clothing), the style or shape of a garment ** Cut ( ...
gardens for staff to collect blueberries, kale, tomatoes, and flowers for their desks. Inside, Finefrock chose vintage furniture, topographical maps and brass animals to complement the full library of books that she sourced from the estate of Frank H. Pearl, investor and founder of Perseus Books Group. Custom standing lamps illuminate leather reading chairs, a small cabinet of curiosities holds a rotating selection of objects evoking a sense of wonder befitting of factories for creative technology, both pencils and Kickstarter. The building was designed to accommodate a variety of working styles and give staff multiple options for places to work. It follows an open plan layout common to startups, with rows of long work tables for staff to share. Alternatively, staff can work by preference at more private spaces around the office: an individual
carrel Carrel is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Armand Carrel (1800–1836), French writer *Alexis Carrel (1873–1944), French surgeon and biologist * Dany Carrel (born 1932), French actress * Félicité Carrel, Italian mountaineer ...
or armchair in the library, a
rattan Rattan, also spelled ratan, is the name for roughly 600 species of Old World climbing palms belonging to subfamily Calamoideae. The greatest diversity of rattan palm species and genera are in the closed- canopy old-growth tropical fores ...
lounge chair in the rooftop solarium, the meditation stone in the center courtyard, the wooden bleachers, and standing desks. The meeting rooms ranged from cozy spaces for small groups with mid-century
loveseat A loveseat can be one of two styles of two-seat chair. One form – also known as "British two-seaters" – is essentially synonymous with "two-seat couch". It typically has two upholstered seats. Another form, variously also known as ...
s to spacious conference rooms. There is also a deck on the roof for working outdoors and screening films. The building's third story, its basement, was built for operations and public programming, with a kitchen, gallery space, and theater. Woodworkers built kitchen
banquette A banquette is a small footpath or elevated step along the inside of a rampart or parapet of a fortification. Musketeers atop it were able to view the counterscarp, or fire on enemies in the moat. A typical size is a foot and a half (approxima ...
s made of reclaimed wood as homage to the restaurant where the company's co-founders originally met a decade earlier. The 1,600-square-foot gallery was designed to host community events and artists. The 74-seat, Western redcedar-paneled theater hosts presentations, screenings, and performances for the company and outside creators.


Façade

The property purchased by Kickstarter and designated as 58 Kent Street is composed of three separate façades. The westernmost portion of the building, or its right side when facing its entrance, was part of an
Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...
-style factory designed by Philemon Tillion in 1860. Faber moved his factory to the location from lower Manhattan in 1872 and commissioned the Brooklyn architect Theobald Engelhardt to make the center façade 1895. The Renaissance Revival section uses brick
dentil A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian R ...
courses Course may refer to: Directions or navigation * Course (navigation), the path of travel * Course (orienteering), a series of control points visited by orienteers during a competition, marked with red/white flags in the terrain, and corresponding ...
and
corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...
s,
cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron– carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuri ...
lintel A lintel or lintol is a type of beam (a horizontal structural element) that spans openings such as portals, doors, windows and fireplaces. It can be a decorative architectural element, or a combined ornamented structural item. In the case of ...
s, radiating brick arches, and
bluestone Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including: * basalt in Victoria, Australia, and in New Zealand * dolerites in Tasmania, Australia; and in Britain (including Stonehenge) * felds ...
water tables. The easternmost (left) portion follows the German Romanesque Revival style, featuring jutting brick header arches above the windows, cast iron lintels above the doors, and iron shutter hinges. The
pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedim ...
s above the latter two sections show the pencil company's logo. Kickstarter's leaders liked the mismatched, dilapidated façade and hired New York City architect Scott Henson to assess whether it could be preserved. While historic preservation typically entails a return to the original condition, Henson was instead asked to keep its graffiti layers, different mortar types, broken bricks, and anachronistic masonry repairs while ensuring the façade's structural stability and
waterproofing Waterproofing is the process of making an object or structure waterproof or water-resistant so that it remains relatively unaffected by water or resisting the ingress of water under specified conditions. Such items may be used in wet environme ...
. The architect and preservation consultants surveyed every seam in the façade and chose mortars that would replicate the originals. Another contractor assessed for structural soundness. The restorers then cut and repointed mortar joints based on a threshold of deterioration, and repaired other minor holes with spot pointing. Though the base of the central, Engelhardt-designed façade had more than 30 percent brick erosion, their joints were selectively repointed and bricks coated with water repellent, so as to preserve the existing brick face. The restorers preserved the graffiti on the brick faces but not on the repointed mortar. The brickwork in the building's rear was completely rather than selectively repointed to save money. Contemporary glass windows and Corten steel window boxes replaced their formerly closed apertures, and a minimalist Corten steel overhang signals the building's entrance on an otherwise unassuming façade.


Construction and opening

Kickstarter's renovation plans were unanimously approved by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission in March 2012 and praised by community officials. Construction had begun by January 2013 and staff moved in a year later, in January 2014. Kickstarter opened its headquarters with a public block party and art show in April. The company hosted a '' Killer Queen''
arcade cabinet An arcade cabinet, also known as an arcade machine or a coin-op cabinet or coin-op machine, is the housing within which an arcade game's electronic hardware resides. Most cabinets designed since the mid-1980s conform to the Japanese Amusement Mac ...
for the block party and continued to house it afterwards. Sondresen, the architect, gave a public tour of the building in October. The restoration received awards from the New York Landmarks Conservancy and
Municipal Art Society The Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) is a non-profit membership organization for preservation in New York City, which aims to encourage thoughtful planning and urban design and inclusive neighborhoods across the city. The organization was ...
.


References


External links

* * {{Portal bar, Architecture, Companies, New York City Buildings and structures in Brooklyn Greenpoint, Brooklyn Information technology company headquarters in the United States Office buildings completed in 2014 2014 establishments in New York City