Nowadays, the new outdoor hangout opened by the legendary Mister Sunday team has recently opened to the public, offering great beers, backyard barbecue fare and excellently programmed music. Future Green Studio designed and built the 18,000 SF space taking its cues for the design from the existing post-industrial site and transforming it into a park-like setting to provide a relaxed outdoor environment for all ages.
Located in Ridgewood, Queens, the site was discovered 18 months ago by well known Brooklyn DJs Justin Carter, Eamon Harkin and their partner Mark Connell. Now it’s a go-to space for everyone from the workers that populate the surrounding manufacturing district, families from nearby residential pockets in Ridgewood and artists living in Bushwick lofts. Inspired by the existing weedy landscape, industrial conditions of the surrounding context, and a recent public art intervention by artist Katharina Grosse, Future Green developed an adhoc, playful environment, by highlighting the weedy plants with eco-paint and providing informal seating of grassy mounds and tree platform benches.
The padded floor, a key feature in the space, provides a multi-use surface - it’s as much for dancing as it is for kids to run around on during the day. The grid of honey locust that surround the floor, frames the space, offers shade on hot summer days, and will remediate the soil over time. Sumac trees, grey birch and quaking aspen populate the grassy mounds and perimeter of the site providing additional shade and referencing a typical successional landscape that would emerge on a previously disturbed site.
Photo Credit: K•Taro Hashimura