The park that dims itself for Brooklyn Heights

In 2004, Domingo Gonzalez Associates began work as lighting designer with Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates on turning 85 acres of Brooklyn’s historic pier district into a waterfront park¹. The plan runs 1.3 miles: esplanade, meadows, walkways, sports fields, play areas and public art¹. Piers 1 and 6 opened in spring 2010¹.

Neighbours first

The park sits below homes that look out over it, so the lighting was designed to preserve the night views of Manhattan from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and beyond¹. The paths are brighter than the lawns, and the skyline stays the spectacle.

Multiple lighting states … lend a sense of moonlight over the Park’s vast lawns, transitioning to minimum light for after-hours security.

Domingo Gonzalez Associates, on Brooklyn Bridge Park

Dimming, park-wide

DGA says it was the first park in the US, and perhaps the world, to dim its metal halide lighting across the whole site; those fittings have since been converted to LED¹. The different lighting states give the lawns a moonlit feel in the evening and fall to a minimum after hours, to help the park stay a ‘good neighbor’ to Brooklyn Heights¹.

From the project

The studio’s own page anticipated completion in 2021¹; we have not checked the current state of every pier. The approach it describes has not changed: light the routes, keep the lawns soft, protect the view.

DGA also lights projects outside New York. In this month’s Toronto edition, the same studio is restoring the chandeliers in Union Station’s Great Hall².