You’ll never ever stumble into bad lighting at The Lighthouse Brooklyn. The members club, developed as a center for the influencer economy, is crafted so that every corner is photo-op all set. Warkentin Associates and Bench Architecture converted the former Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory in New york city City’s Greenpoint area into a hub for content developers. The 30,000-square-foot area is more than a place to co-work: The Lighthouse also houses recording studios, photo studios, and podcast space, along with a coffee shop, bar, theater, and DJ cubicle.
“When we first got the building, it was a wide-open area, cold, spacious, with simply a row of desks,” said Nathan Warkentin, founder of Warkentin Associates, which likewise developed the very first Los Angeles branch of The Lighthouse. The very first order of business was stripping the building of its outdated surface area treatments and warming up its commercial bones.
The previous Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, is now a center for content creators. Formerly it was an office for Kickstarter. (Yoshihiro Makino)
Bench Architecture, which functioned as task manager, inserted mezzanines and new levels throughout the space to separate the soaring ceiling heights, which are accentuated by the pre-existing glass atrium that runs through the cellar, main level, and penthouse floor.
The centerpiece of the floor is the Library Bar, where a DJ cubicle is coupled with custom-made pieces consisting of a sofa, barstools, and green wool rugs. (Yoshihiro Makino )”The essence is adaptability. [Creators] do not like to be restricted to a particular program. They desire a free-form, flexible area that can be utilized in various ways,” Warkentin informed AN. The architects incorporated versatile seating alternatives and various backdrops that stimulate bars, hotel lobbies, or cafes because “those are locations innovative individuals like to be in,” said Warkentin.
On the main floor, common desks de-signed by Warkentin are lined up together with wood-framed private offices and phone cubicles. These desks can also be discovered in The Lighthouse’s Los Angeles station, which opened in February 2025. However the centerpiece of the floor is the Library Bar, where customized wood shelving extends into a DJ cubicle with speakers and vinyl records. It’s coupled with custom-made steel and leather barstools, three-seat couch, and green wool rugs, and Artemide flooring lamps.For developers with more complex production requirements, the architects integrate and most importantly expose AV and tech. On the penthouse level, a wood-clad test kitchen area with a custom-made butcher block features rigging on the ceiling to establish overhead cameras for the ideal shot. In the cellar, podcast studios are constructed like spaces within spaces for acoustical control. The interiors are finished in different treatments on the ceilings and walls, consisting of the TECTUM acoustic panels. The panels’ pattern of swirling wood fiber is left exposed alongside cable televisions and wires, developing affinity with the commercial website.
For the food-inclined influencers, a wood-clad test kitchen with a custom-made butcher block features rigging on the ceiling for overhead cameras. (Yoshihiro Makino)
More customized furniture created by the architects, as well as pieces by regional designers (a molded-resin reception desk by Facture Studio, aluminum lighting by UBR Studio), is located within concrete columns and exposed mechanical elements. “It is part of the communication of the style: to tell you the area is tech-enabled. It has a raw, imaginative feeling,” stated Warkentin. It’s an apt design for inspiring a brand-new class of digital creatives.