The Great Harbor Design Center transforms a nineteenth-century naval manufacturing facility within the Brooklyn Navy Yard into a contemporary hub for industrial design, sustainable manufacturing, environmental innovation, and architectural research. The project strategically inserts a high-performance "Ice Cube" research and development laboratory into the building's existing concrete dry dock, while introducing elevated communal and collaborative spaces on a new mezzanine level. This intervention fully leverages Building 12's expansive 132-by-296-foot footprint, creating a highly adaptable environment for research, fabrication, exhibition, and public engagement.

The design celebrates the legacy of the site's industrial heritage while redefining it for a new generation of makers. Transparent production spaces expose the complete lifecycle of recycled glass—from raw material processing to finished product—transforming manufacturing into an immersive public experience. This concept of industrial theater makes the act of fabrication itself an architectural event, fostering education, innovation, and collaboration.

Within the restored 52,000-square-foot steel-truss structure, the project balances historic preservation with contemporary performance, creating a luminous, flexible workplace that demonstrates how adaptive reuse can advance sustainable manufacturing, environmental stewardship, and design excellence.