Archinect - News

Snøhetta tops out Manhattan residential tower with ‘striking geometry’

2024-02-23T12:03:00-05:00

A Snøhetta-designed residential tower in Manhattan’s Upper West Side has topped out. Named 50 West 66th Street, the scheme is described by Snøhetta as having a “striking geometry” with a “natural palette of refined materials.”

Archinect first reported on the development in 2017 upon the release of the design proposal, detailing the tower’s palette of textured limestone, glass storefronts, and bronze details. Externally, the facade is defined by what the designers call a “series of sculptural excavations, evocative of the chiseled stone of Manhattan’s geologic legacy.”

Image credit: Extell

As the tower rises, its profile gradually narrows, including a distinctive splitting of the volume at the 16th level, creating a shared amenity terrace. Above the terrace, the opposing corners of the tower are sliced away to create residential balconies. “Angled facets evoke this chiseled vocabulary, revealing the same gleaming bronze found at the building’s base,” the designers add.

Image credit: L...

Michael Kimmelman again asks: 'Should New York regulate its skyline?'

2023-10-25T15:11:00-04:00

A generation ago, the New York skyline was a global icon, shaped more or less like a suspension bridge stretched between the Empire State and the Twin Towers, making it possible to, say, pop out of some unfamiliar subway station, gaze up toward the clouds and orient oneself along the skyline’s north-south axis. Today, the skyline is vastly more complex, far-flung and difficult to picture, and it’s common to hear complaints that the city has lost its bearings.

The addition of Meganom and SLCE’s 860-foot 262 Fifth Avenue tower to New York’s accidental skyline also raises questions about legislating ‘view sheds’ and historic sightlines around the city, Michael Kimmelman writes. The city currently only has one protected vista overlooking the Financial District from Brooklyn Heights. Developers have famously been manipulating the local zoning code governing allowable height in order to receive approvals, an issue Kimmelman has preached about in earnest for the past decade.

“It’s time to rethink our assumptions,” preservationist Jorge Otero-Pailos tells him, before adding his opinion that regulations would “guarantee a collective experience, a sense of shared identity and civic meaning, which can bind New Yorkers across generations and centuries.”

Construction of 262 Fifth Avenue is expected to wrap up by the end of 2024.

These are the 10 most successful NYC architects of the past year according to TRD

2022-02-01T12:07:00-05:00

CRE publication The Real Deal has released its annual list of the ten most commercially successful firms in New York City’s high-profile building market. Most of our readers will recognize these firms as regulars in Archinect Jobs.

As the architects of record, these firms appeared in permitting documents for developments that totaled more than 13.5 million square feet in total area. TDR ranked the firms by the aggregated square footage of their business output.

SLCE took the top billing with 10 projects worth a total of 3.1 million square feet followed by Handel Architects, which had a total of five projects and 2.5 million square feet combined. The top two were followed by Perkins Eastman, which had six totaling 2 million square feet, including a planned 74-story development in Long Island City. Beyer Blinder Belle took the fourth slot with 1.4 million square feet and four developments, followed by Gene Kaufman Architects, which registered five with a total of 1.3 million square ...

New photos of Thomas Heatherwick's now completed Lantern House

2021-09-20T18:35:00-04:00

Photographer Colin Miller has new images of the Thomas Heatherwick-designed Lantern House condominium building sitting along the High Line in New York’s tony Chelsea neighborhood.

The recently completed development was a bit overshadowed by Heatherwick Studio’s recent additions to the city, which includes the controversial Vessel at Hudson Yards and nearby Little Island floating park.

Now, as tenants officially begin moving into the designer’s first completed residential development, admire the sculptural form and unique modular bay window facade thanks to Miller‘s photos of the latest high-profile Heatherwick addition to the visual landscape of New York City.

New photos of Álvaro Siza's first U.S. building in NYC

2019-12-10T15:00:00-05:00

Archinect has received new photos of 611 West 56th Street, the first state-side building by Portuguese architect and 1992 Pritzker Prize winner, Álvaro Siza.

Currently under construction in Manhattan, the 37-story luxury condo tower is being jointly developed by Sumaida + Khurana (the group behind Tadao Ando's first New York City project at 152 Elizabeth Street) and LENY.

Photo: João Morgado

In a recent NYT interview, the 86-year-old Siza shared his response to winning this commission. "I didn’t expect to have the opportunity to build in Manhattan. Now, at my age, I thought I had lost the opportunity. I was very happy to be invited and thought, 'Well, let’s see if I still have energy for this project.'"

Photo: João Morgado

"Located at 823 11th Avenue at the corner of 56th Street in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, 611 West 56th Street measures 172,000 SF, over 450 feet tall and to be 37 stories," explai...

New renderings of Thomas Heatherwick's High Line condo towers, Lantern House

2019-10-08T13:46:00-04:00

The Related Companies has released new renderings and a new name for Thomas Heatherwick’s High Line project at 515 West 18th Street: Lantern House. The pair of residential structures is located along Tenth Avenue between West 18th Street and West 19th Street and flanks both sides of the High Line [...]. The development is Heatherwick’s first residential project in New York City and in the United States. SLCE Architects is the architect of record.

Thomas Heatherwick is expanding his foothold in New York City: after creating quite a stir with the Vessel at Hudson Yards and the under-construction floating Pier 55 park, the London-based studio is teaming up with developers Related Companies again for the practice's first residential project on this side of the Atlantic, called Lantern House.

Prices for the 181 residences will start at $1.7 million for a one-bedroom unit, reports NY YIMBY.

Rendering courtesy of Related Companies

Snøhetta reveals ‘excavated’ bronze tower that will be the Upper West Side’s tallest

2017-11-27T15:19:00-05:00

Snøhetta's design for a 775-foot tall condominium tower at 50 West 66th Street calls for a series of sculptural excavations, with several slices up the structure and narrowing upward from its base.

According to Wallpaper, the Upper West Side tower developed by Extell Development will feature textured limestone, glass storefronts and bronze details. As the building tightens in size, the tall windows with bronzed frames will be set into the stone facades. On the tower’s 16th floor, the firm is planning a stepped outdoor terrace to serve as a shared amenity space, as well as sweeping views of the Hudson River and Central Park.

Upon its completion, the 127-unit tower on 66th Street will be the tallest on the Upper West Side, passing by the 668-foot tall tower proposed for 200 Amsterdam Avenue.

In February, Extell unveiled renderings of a new condo near Central Park West at 36 West 66th Street, for which they acquired for $45 million in 2015. Three office buildings were razed for the pro...

Starchitect Switcheroo: Christian de Portzamparc Ditched by Developer on Manhattan Megaproject

2012-09-24T15:28:00-04:00

Neither is this switcheroo exactly new. That is a big part of the reason the City Planning Commission works so hard to ensure certain design flourishes and details in ambitious projects like the Riverside Center.

Yet again—the World Trade Center, Atlantic Yards, the Williamsburg waterfront—a New York City developer has dumped his high design stalking horse when it actually comes time to build their project. This time, Christian de Portzamparc was used to get the eight-acre Riverside Center through the difficult public review process. Now, local hacks SLCE will be finishing the design work. Is this a Pritzker bait and switch or just how the game is played?