Archinect - News

KPF’s James von Klemperer on 520 Fifth Ave. and being a 'good neighbor'

2024-10-18T11:20:00-04:00

I think all tall buildings, especially, have a kind of responsibility that goes beyond the program and the site. Because once you emerge into the skyline in a significant way, which this building will, the skyline is almost viewed, I think, by us New Yorkers as public property. If you put up a terrible profile on the skyline, everybody has to look at it from uptown, downtown, Long Island, New Jersey. And it’s very subjective.

The firm's forthcoming 1,002-foot supertall, which we first previewed back in February, is ramping up construction towards completion in 2026. Its language of setbacks and arches is a nod to other towers shaped by the famous 1916 zoning envelope mandate that produced the Chrysler Building and many other quintessential designs through mid-century.

KPF is currently working on what will be the new tallest building in Texas for 2026 while the city prepares an 11-block Fifth Avenue pedestrian corridor redesign led by Field Operations.

Image credit: Binyan Studios

Image credit: DBOX

Changi Terminal 5 design by KPF + Heatherwick sets date for 2025 groundbreaking

2024-10-09T19:04:00-04:00

KPF and Heatherwick Studio’s collaboration on the new Changi Airport Terminal 5 is set for take off in Singapore after officials there announced plans for to break ground on the $10 billion project in the first half of 2025. Once it is ready by the mid-2030s, the terminal will serve around 50 million passengers annually. This is Heatherwick Studio's third project in Singapore and follows the completion of KPF’s undulating design of the new Terminal A at Zayed International Airport in Abu Dhabi in February.

First renderings of KPF's major 8 Canada Square overhaul

2024-07-18T16:53:00-04:00

The plan from Kohn Pedersen Fox for a major redevelopment of the 42-story Norman Foster-designed 8 Canada Square tower in London (opened in 2003 and currently leased by HSBC) has gone public for the first time.

The project, which commences in 2027, is expected to be realized at 1.1 million square feet and showcase the most up-to-date workspaces along with a suite of amenities for workers, including leisure, entertainment, education, and cultural attractions.

Image copyright Kiasm, courtesy of KPF

KPF Design Principal Elie Gamburg said her team views this as an opportunity to “reimagine the single-use office building as a blueprint for the highly sustainable, mixed-use building of the future.” Plans are to have it serve as a connection between the nearby Elizabeth Line station and Canada Square Park. Some of the changes proposed (as noted below) are a complete retrofitting of the building envelope, plus the addition of two large setbacks and outdoor terraces leading to a rooftop vie...

Updating KPF’s quest to deliver Texas’ new tallest skyscraper

2024-06-10T10:37:00-04:00

Contractor Brett Bickford recently described his firm DPR's work on their “dream job” constructing the new 74-story KPF-designed The Waterline skyscraper in Austin. The project that will yield 2.7 million square feet of space and a mixed-use program that includes 351 luxury residences, a 251-key hotel, and 700,000-square-foot office component will become the state’s new tallest building in 2026. Construction recently reached the halfway mark, with I.M. Pei’s 1981 JPMorgan Chase Tower in Houston dead in its sights and the adjacent Lady Bird Lake and Waller Creek water features anchoring it in the periphery.

KPF designs Columbia University's first purpose-built, all-electric research lab building

2024-04-10T18:28:00-04:00

Kohn Pedersen Fox has designed a new state-of-the-art research and academic facility that will deliver Columbia Universty’s first purpose-built, all-electric lab building for the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

The project will augment Columbia’s Plan 2030 for achieving campus-wide net-zero emissions by 2050. It boasts a system of air source heat pumps (ASHPs) that manage the building’s temperature controls in unison with a high-performance facade that offers an optimized window-to-wall-ratio under 50%.

Credit: RGB, courtesy Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF)

“As an all-electric research lab building in a cold climate, the biomedical research building presented a particular challenge given high heating loads brought on by the ventilation requirements of the building’s program,” KPF’s Director and Head of Sustainability, Carlos Cerezo Davila, said in a project announcement. “This required us to design a building where the architecture and the mechanical systems work toge...

KPF presents Detroit's new University of Michigan Center for Innovation design

2024-04-05T15:15:00-04:00

A new project in Detroit from Kohn Pedersen Fox will deliver the University of Michigan's Center for Innovation (UMCI), a six-story academic research and teaching facility that is expected to open by the spring of 2027.

Construction has already commenced for the $250 million development, which will be delivered at 200,000 square feet in advance of two other “incubator” and residential structures that will follow at a later date on the four-acre site. The university says the UMCI will serve a host of purposes and is primarily intended for workforce development and different graduate degree programs.

Atrium view. Image credit: Kohn Pedersen Fox

KPF Design Principal Hana Kassem describes: “The UMCI is a catalyst for positive change and, as such, presents itself along Grand River Avenue as a ‘gateway for innovation. It proudly bears the University of Michigan spirit focusing on progress and inclusivity which is embodied in its dynamic forward-leaning form and the portal that cuts through...

KPF completes Abu Dhabi airport inspired by undulating sand dunes

2024-02-13T11:58:00-05:00

Kohn Pedersen Fox has completed Terminal A of the Zayed International Airport in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Formerly named Abu Dhabi International, the new complex will serve up to 45 million passengers per year, doubling the airport’s previous capacity.

Image credit: Victor Romero

The design of the new terminal was informed by the country’s undulating desert sand dunes and the geometric patterns of Islamic heritage. Externally, the form was developed from a desire to provide shading for the interior without the use of external shading devices, which could be impacted by sand accumulation. Instead, the undulating form “drapes” over the facade, where high-performance glass is fritted in a graduated pattern to further mitigate solar glare.

Image credit: Victor Romero

As visitors approach the terminal, they are met with a 160-foot-tall, free-standing glazed facade, behind which sits a largely column-free departure hall. The hall’s supporting arc...

KPF’s tapered Tower 36 wins approval in Miami

2023-10-30T13:50:00-04:00

The design of KPF’s Tower 36 has been approved by the Miami Urban Development Review Board. Developed in collaboration with architect of record ODP Architecture & Design, the 922,000-square-foot tower will hold both office and retail functions.

Image credit: Atchain, courtesy of KPF

Externally, the 635-foot-tall tapered tower is defined by a glass facade containing terraces on all office floors. The terraces have been “arranged in a configuration that conveys a sense of movement across the building” and detailed with light bronze soffit accents.

Image credit: Atchain, courtesy of KPF

At the base of the tower, a podium holds retail spaces, bicycle, and car parking, and a landscaped roof accessed by a restaurant. The podium strikes a curved form, with the ground level cut away at the northeastern corner to reveal a motor court arrival and office lobby entrance.

Image credit: Atchain, courtesy of KPF

“Accentuating the podium’s cantilevered form and open corners, the façade’s layered patte...

New York Gov. Hochul announces affordable housing plans for KPF's 5 World Trade Center

2023-08-02T14:07:00-04:00

Progress on the 5 World Trade Center (5WTC) project by KPF moves forward after a press conference announcement on July 27 from New York Governor Kathy Hochul. In an effort to build more affordable housing in Lower Manhattan, the news reported by The Real Deal states that the mixed-use skyscraper will also include 1,200 rentals "with one-third designated for low-to-moderate-income within the World Trade Center redevelopment."

In January 2022, Archinect reported on the project and its online petition for creating affordable housing options for 5 World Trade Center. Led by the New York Review of Architecture and Citygroup, the petition called for a "75% increase in the number of affordable units in the 900-foot 5 World Trade Center. The document, titled 100% Affordable, pressed developers to do away with the current plan, which designates 300 of the development’s 1,200 rental units for tenants earning less than 50 percent of the median income, in favor of a more progressive scheme tha...

Kohn Pedersen Fox co-founder A. Eugene “Gene” Kohn passes away aged 92

2023-03-09T17:29:00-05:00

Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) co-founder A. Eugene “Gene” Kohn has passed away today in New York at the age of 92.

Kohn was a graduate of his hometown University of Pennsylvania and went on to found KPF along with his classmate Sheldon Fox and architect William Pedersen in 1976 after working for Welton Becket Associates' operation in New York.

From there, early commissions for One Logan Square in Philadelphia and 333 Wacker Drive in Chicago helped shape the firm’s trajectory through the 1980s, eventually ending the decade with a slew of major corporate commissions – 900 North Michigan Avenue, the CNG Tower, and 311 South Wacker Drive – included in its growing international portfolio.

KPF co-founders Sheldon (Shelley) Fox, Bill Pedersen, and Gene Kohn. Image courtesy KPF

By that time, the firm had become a known entity among other commercial giants such as SOM and Gensler. An AIA Architecture Firm Award followed in 1990 and would help Kohn and his partners expand into new practice areas w...

Will Austin’s tall-buildings boom survive the skyscraper effect and looming tech recession?

2023-01-19T17:52:00-05:00

But joining the fraternity of cities with supertalls can also be a dubious distinction: Real estate is a lagging indicator, and skyscrapers often arrive after the boom is over, looming half-empty as monuments to a bust. Others, however, are convinced that Austin’s high-rise stampede is just getting started. Given the city’s emerging significance as a next-gen manufacturing hub this building boom could defy the skyscraper effect.

With a slate of high-rises and supertalls, including KPF’s Waterline design and the record-setting Wilson Tower from HKS in the works, Bloomberg asks if the pace of development can be sustained amidst tech’s downturn and the annals of urban economic history. The salvation apparently lies in the influx of manufacturing dollars into the city, along with a downtown area that offers what some consider to be the nation’s highest overall quality of living.

A planned cap-and-stitch project could add even more commercial parcels along a stretch of I-35 downtown beginning in 2025. The risks of repeating the same tax incentive-driven boom-bust cycle that led to so many of Dubai’s architectural headaches a decade ago are not lost on developers. For now, Austin’s only real crisis is the affordability of homes and a dearth of convenient worker housing.

KPF and Heatherwick reveal design for Changi Airport Terminal 5 in Singapore

2022-09-06T11:51:00-04:00

KPF and Heatherwick Studio have offered an update on the design of Changi Airport’s Terminal 5 in Singapore. Described by the designers as a “bold re-imagination of the airport paradigm,” the new terminal will increase the airport’s capacity by 50 million annual passengers.

KPF and Heatherwick were awarded the bid to design the terminal back in 2018, part of a larger project to deliver 100 additional aircraft stands, a three-runway system, and new cargo complexes. The airport was also the focus of international attention in 2019 with the unveiling of Moshe Safdie’s “Jewel Changi” addition, featuring the world’s largest indoor waterfall.

The design of Terminal 5 adopts an “airport as a city” concept, where each component is seen as an opportunity to create a neighborhood with its own character. The team also bills the terminal as an “engaging new district” of benefit to travelers and locals, echoing Safdie’s move to combine natural and built elements within the airport.

Aerial credi...

How do web developers intersect with architectural practice?

2022-08-03T12:19:00-04:00

In our 2021 feature titled Meet the Architects Designing Software to Fight Climate Change, we explored the intersection between architecture and web development by speaking to four firms who have internally developed software to support their design process.

Among the firms we spoke to was Boston-based Sasaki. In our conversation, we learned that the benefits of creating in-house software and applications led Sasaki to form an entire division of designers, planners, data scientists, and software developers dedicated full-time to web development. Named Sasaki Strategies, the group’s output can vary widely, from interactive apps and software to data visualization and storytelling.

Archinect Feature: Meet the Architects Designing Software to Fight Climate Change

The propagation of such teams within architectural practices will unlock new career opportunities for architects interested in pivoting towards web development; opportunities we have explored in previous editions of our Job Hig...

KPF renovation of Roche-Dinkeloo's 60 Wall Street comes under landmarks preservation review

2022-06-27T17:47:00-04:00

A key building feature on one of Kevin Roche’s most ingenious New York City designs is under threat of being erased, according to the preservation group Docomomo US.

The late Pritzker winner’s 60 Wall Street building is undergoing renovation by Kohn Pedersen Fox this summer, and the group says it includes the removal of the facade’s characteristic chamfered design elements and changes to the atrium that will alter its unique lobby space “beyond recognition.”

The atrium of 60 Wall Street. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons user Matthew G. Bisanz (CC BY 3.0)

A rendering of the proposed changes to the atrium. Image courtesy Paramount Group

Completed in 1989, the postmodern office design was included in Docomomo’s list of 11 endangered historical places earlier this year and is, per the air rights transfer agreement that was signed when the property was sold a few years ago, legally required to be redeveloped in “harmonious relationship” to the Greek revival former National City Bank Buildi...

KPF breaks ground on a new headquarters for T. Rowe Price in Baltimore

2022-03-31T19:36:00-04:00

An exciting birthday gift is underway in the Charm City as Kohn Pedersen Fox has finally broken ground on a new headquarters for T. Rowe Price in the company’s hometown of Baltimore 85 years after its founding.

The project was announced in December 2020 and centers around a new 550,000-square-foot two-winged building with an all-glass central atrium sited along a prime piece of waterfront real estate fronting the pivotal gateway of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor area.

Image © Atchain, courtesy Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates

KPF Design Principal Jeffrey Kenoff said the project will create a “hyper-porosity, both visual and physical, from the Central Plaza down to the harbor. The façade specifically reduces the scale of the massing through a cadence of grey double-height bays that echo the city’s historical DNA and industrial heritage.”

Plans are for construction to be completed in 2024. The building will aim for ambitious Fitwel Three-Star and LEED Platinum certifications in its interiors. T...

Activists in NYC call for affordable alternatives to KPF's 5 WTC

2022-01-24T18:04:00-05:00

The fight for affordable housing in New York City has come to one of Lower Manhattan’s most important developments in recent memory.

An online petition organized by the New York Review of Architecture and Citygroup has been circulating that appears to call for a 75% increase in the number of affordable units in the 900-foot 5 World Trade Center. The document, titled 100% Affordable, pressed developers to do away with the current plan, which designates 300 of the development’s 1,200 rental units for tenants earning less than 50 percent of the median income, in favor of a more progressive scheme that would prioritize 9/11 survivors and frontline workers in an alternative to the recently-approved KPF design.

“This is not an abstract, pie-in-the-sky call for ideas,” the group’s statement reads. “This call is structured around the actual approval process for the tower. The developers backing the current proposal claim that this degree of affordability is untenable given the enormous con...

Summit One Vanderbilt announces opening date. See the latest pictures here.

2021-09-20T15:59:00-04:00

A dramatic new feature is close to opening atop one recent addition to New York’s skyline.

Summit One Vanderbilt offers visitors of the Kohn Pedersen Fox-designed tower a multisensory experience as well as an attractive nordic-themed café and lounge in addition to stunning views of the surrounding city that can be taken in from New York’s highest exterior viewing platform.

Image courtesy SL Green

Snøhetta is behind the design of Summit One Vanderbilt’s 65,000-square-foot interior space and lounge called Après. Kenzo Digital’s Air gives visitors an option of two Matrix-like experiential spaces courtesy of Levitation boxes and an all-glass elevator called Ascent that extends to a height of 1,200 feet.

Image courtesy SL Green

“We can’t wait to welcome New Yorkers and visitors to New York to experience this truly unique destination right in the heart of Manhattan connected to Grand Central Terminal. People are going to want to come back to SUMMIT One Vanderbilt again and again.”

Image c...

Henning Larsen's first London project bets big on the future of work in a changing city

2021-06-08T13:11:00-04:00

Henning Larsen is making its first foray into London with a mix-used project a few short steps from Buckingham Palace.

The new building will sit atop a reimagined foyer space tying the 470,000 square foot office development to a market, full-service gym, garden terrace and retail establishments through a web of interconnected bicycling and pedestrian tracks that the three-firm team hopes will turn 105 Victoria into a vital public square in the heart of the West End by the end of the decade.

Renders by DBOX.

With a hand from KPF and Adamson Associates, Henning Larsen were able to put forth a bold design that actively seeks to improve the work-life balance of the building’s workers through the many amenities available on-site in a full rejection of the exodus from cities prognosticators have forecasted as the start of the pandemic gave rise to a remote work revolution.

Renders by DBOX.

“Our ambition for the project is to create an active urban destination in the heart of London, a pocke...

Five architecture students awarded the 2021 Kohn Pedersen Fox Traveling Fellowship

2021-05-24T16:13:00-04:00

In a continued effort to support and mentor emerging architects and designers, firms like Kohn Pedersen Fox have developed scholarships and fellowship opportunities for students to explore and expand their architecture experiences.

"Each year, Kohn Pedersen Fox presents awards to students who are in their penultimate year at one of the twenty-seven design schools with whom KPF has partnered," shares the firm. "The purpose of the award is to allow students to broaden their education through a summer of travel before their final year at school [...] Recipients are awarded cash prizes to fund summer research on far-reaching topics that push the boundaries of critical thinking and architectural design."

This year's winning fellowship recipients are listed below in no particular order.

Rachel Bouraad of Pratt Institute

Portfolio by Rachel Bouraad. Image courtesy of KPF

Bijou Harding of Cambridge University

Portfolio of Bijou Harding. Image courtesy of KPF

Nicholas Houser of The Universit...

New views of KPF's Midtown supertall show off sky-high greenery

2021-05-12T18:24:00-04:00

A slew of new renderings showing the breadth of the next-gen 343 Madison Avenue have emerged. The supertall tower, developed by Boston Properties and designed by skyscraper pros Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF), is currently on the rise atop the former site of the Metropolitan Transit Authority headquarters in Midtown East just one block from Grand Central. [...] The tower will rise 1,050 feet and be among the tallest in the neighborhood.

Kohn Pedersen Fox shares images of newly completed Bundang Doosan Tower

2021-04-15T12:50:00-04:00

Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) recently completes the Bundang Doosan Tower in Jung District of central Seoul. With its stacked, interconnected masses, and glass facade what makes this tower so interesting is the 100-meter tall sky bridge connecting the two towers.

Designed for the Doosan Corporation James von Klemperer, KPF President and Design Principal explained, "The Bundang Doosan Tower represents the latest example of KPF’s work in Korea. The design strives for rational simplicity while being highly expressive and impactful. By using office building masses to define a large rectangular void, the composition affords striking views from the highway. The architecture conveys qualities of solidity and strength, and by organizing itself around a central space, it also communicates the value of community."

"In order to construct the skybridge, the 1,500-ton structure was preassembled on site at ground level and then lifted into place over the course of 24 hours." Image credit: Time of Blue...

KPF's first residential tower in Philadelphia, Arthaus, tops out

2021-02-24T15:35:00-05:00

After breaking ground on its first residential high-rise in Philadelphia in June 2019, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates now celebrated the topping out with developer Dranoff Properties. Dubbed Arthaus, the 47-story glass-and-steel tower sits on Avenue of the Arts vis-à-vis the city's Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.

View from The Union League of Philadelphia. Photo: Thomas Koloski.

KPF Chairman Eugene Kohn said: "As a Philadelphia native, I feel immensely proud of this project. Arthaus is a major addition to the city skyline, marking the Arts District from afar [...]."

View from South 17th Street and Pine Street. Photo: Thomas Koloski.

"In plan, units are organized in a pinwheel shape around a central core, allowing each residence to occupy a corner of the building," explains the project description. "With large windows and two exposures, every apartment is flooded with natural light and offers panoramic views of the Avenue of the Arts, the Philadelphia skyline, the Delaware and Sch...

Kohn Pedersen Fox selected to design 5 World Trade Center

2021-02-11T17:30:00-05:00

A development team for 5 World Trade Center (5 WTC) has been selected by the Port Authority of NY and NJ. The board voted unanimously during their monthly public meeting to award the bid to Silverstein Properties, Brookfield Properties, Omni New York, and Dabar Development. The board also offered up a snapshot of the design, which comes from none other than Kohn Pedersen Fox. The image depicts a 900-ft skyscraper emerging from one of the World Trade Center’s last developable sites.

The full press release from the Port Authority of NY and NJ...

Award for 5 WTC, the Location of the Former Deutsche Bank Building, Cements Governor Cuomo’s Commitment to Complete the Rebuilding of the World Trade Center Campus

New Mixed-Use Tower to Include First Residential Properties at World Trade Center Campus with Hundreds of Units Designated as Permanently Affordable

Development Team Will Now Enter Exclusive Negotiations for Detailed Lease

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Board of Commissioners and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation Board (LMDC) voted today to approve the recommendation of the selection committee for the Request for Proposals (RFP) to develop World Trade Center Site 5. A partnership led by Brookfield Properties and Silverstein Properties has been selected to enter into exclusive negotiations for a lease for the development of a residential tower on the World Trade Center Campus.

The proposal for the future 1.56 million gross square foo...

Long-plagued Midtown office tower will be reborn as 660 Fifth Avenue: See new looks

2021-02-04T21:00:00-05:00

The office tower formerly known as 666 Fifth Avenue has shed both its superstitious address and its controversial connection to the Kushners. Brookfield Asset Management will undertake a $400 million overhaul of the 41-story Midton office tower. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, it will have a new glass facade and floor-to-ceiling windows, a new lobby and retail spaces, and new outdoor terraces when it’s completed in 2022.

Construction begins on 1.4 million-square-foot office complex in New York city

2020-11-23T12:14:00-05:00

Construction has commenced the 1.4 million-square-foot development, One Madison Avenue, that will transform the existing full-block structure into a 27-floor, state-of-the-art office complex. The design and development team includes Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF), developer SL Green, and other partners.

KPF's design for One Madison Avenue updates an existing, mid-century podium and adds an elegant new tower along with over an acre of outdoor space and multiple terraces. The glass-enclosed tower will create a dynamic office space across floor plates upwards of 35,000 square feet.

The 10th and 11th will feature 22' slab heights with expansive outdoor roof decks. By retaining 67 percent of the building's original structure, a notable amount of embodied energy will be reused. The redesign is projected to result in an energy reduction of over 60 percent against the AIA 2030 Commitment baseline, KPF reports.

...

NASA names D.C. headquarters after "Hidden Figure" Mary W. Jackson

2020-06-25T17:33:00-04:00

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) headquarters in Washington, D.C. has been named in honor of Mary W. Jackson, the first female African American engineer to work at the American space agency.

A NASA announcement explains that Jackson, a mathematician and aerospace engineer with degrees from Hampton University, began her career at NASA working within the segregated West Area Computing Unit of the agency’s Langley Research Center. Before working at NASA, Jackson got her start at NASA's predecessor agency, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and made a name for herself within these agencies by analyzing high-velocity wind tunnel tests, eventually working as an engineer in NASA's Compressibility Research Division, its Full-Scale Research Division, the High-Speed Aerodynamics Division, and in the Subsonic-Transonic Aerodynamics Division. Over nearly three decades with NACA and then NASA, Jackson authored or co-authored 12 technical papers. In 19...

KPF moves forward with office adaptive reuse project in London

2020-06-23T13:39:00-04:00

An adaptive reuse project designed by global architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) that would retrofit an existing 1980s office block in London is moving forward following approval from the City of London Planning & Transportation Committee.

The project, located at 81 Newgate Street, includes a "deep retrofit" of the existing structure that will reposition the building as a "sustainable, mixed-use building that is embedded in the wider public life of the City as a new gateway destination into London’s ‘Culture Mile,'" the architects write.

In a press release announcing the project, John Bushell, Design KPF Principal explains, “81 Newgate Street develops a number of reuse and transformation themes that KPF has been working on for a long time, from the World Bank in Washington DC, completed in 1996, to more recent projects in London, such as Unilever House, South Bank Tower and a collection of projects in Covent Garden." Bushell adds, "The mixture of reuse and invention generates ...

Kohn Pedersen Fox breaks ground on terraced Silicon Valley office development

2020-05-18T15:44:00-04:00

Global architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) has broken ground on Platform 16, a new 1.2 million-square-foot office and commercial complex slated for a site next door to Google's forthcoming Transit-oriented village in Downtown San Jose, California.

According to a press release published by the firm, "Platform 16 offers access to outdoor space on each floor, and will include active pedestrian plazas, expansive floorplates, and 15-foot floor-to-floor heights, prioritizing the experiences of diverse occupants."

Overall and interior views of Platform 16. Renderings courtesy Plompmozes for KPF.

Additionally, the building's highly articulated facades are crafted to "create a sense of depth and texture with a faceted expression that modulates their scale and evokes an organic composition," a design that, according to the architects, reflects "a nod to the project’s sustainability" attributes. Those sustainability approaches add up, and the project is slated to outperform current AIA 2...

Over 1,100 foot-high observation deck to open in Hudson Yards, will be highest in Western Hemisphere

2020-03-10T11:46:00-04:00

The KPF-designed 30 Hudson Yards has long been deemed the tallest building of the Hudson Yards development, and due to open this month is the anticipated observation deck Edge, which, floating right at 1,131 feet high, will be the tallest observation deck in the Western Hemisphere. Located on the 100th floor of 30 Hudson Yards, it will take visitors a 52 second elevator ride to reach the platform's 7,500 square foot viewing area.

Nine-foot tall glass walls of angled glass allow viewers to "lean out over Manhattan." The sky deck also includes a glass floor to further exaggerate the intensity of the observation experience as the deck extends almost 80 feet from the face of the tower.

KPF unveils new mixed-use Boston Harbor Tower

2020-02-05T11:46:00-05:00

A city review of design for The Pinnacle at Central Wharf, a high performance mixed-use tower on the Boston waterfront, is underway. Led by developer The Chiofaro Compant and architects Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), the new tower will replace a 7-story parking garage that currently sits on the site in question.

“For The Pinnacle at Central Wharf, we worked hard to create a form that responds to the city of Boston,” said KPF Design Principal Trent Tesch in a statement. “The building’s elegant rounded composition steps back in a series of scaled stacked volumes. Its massing is emphasized by the façade’s simple vertical expression, which also diffuses sunlight and wind for a more comfortable experience at the ground plane. Dramatic openings at the base activate the area’s newfound public space...”

The building is anticipated to achieve a LEED Gold rating, which is projected to be achieved through a comprehensive approach to sustainability. A "high-performance envelope" will be introduced...