Architects and developers continue to push the boundaries of height and width for skyscrapers.
Exhibit A is the project at 303-305 E. 44th Street in New York City. This ODA Architecture-designed 600-ft-high, 41-story tower will be only 47 feet wide.
At that width, this building, which expects to break ground next spring, would lay claim to being the skinniest tower built on the planet to date.
This isn’t the only super-skinny skyscraper that’s going up in Manhattan, of course. The SHoP Architects-designed 1,428-foot-high building at 111 W. 57th Street will be 58 feet wide, a smidgeon thinner and taller than the Rafael Viñoly-designed 1,396-ft residential tower at 432 Park Avenue.
SHoP has also designed Brooklyn, N.Y.’s first supertall building, a 1,000-ft skyscraper at 340 Flatbush Avenue whose height-width ratio would be about 12:1. This building is tentatively scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2019.
The East 44th Street tower, located near the United Nations, will feature six 16-foot-high gaps in its façade, each of which will be a full-floor canopied green space that wraps around the core of the tower. Penthouse residents will have their own full-floor roof garden.
This tower will have 2,600-sf floor plates, which would be about one-third the size of the tower at 432 Park Avenue. This building is scheduled for completion in late 2017, according to Triangle Assets, its developer.
The supertall skinny building trend, so far at least, has been a mostly Manhattan phenomenon. And the West 57th Street project may be approaching the height-width ratio threshold in terms of shear load. That’s especially true “for a building that wants a high degree of special views,” Vishaan Chakrabarti, a partner at SHoP Architects and director of the Center for Urban Real Estate at Columbia University, told The Atlantic’s CityLab.
Adrian Smith of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, which has designed some of the tallest structures in the world, adds that the economics of tall, skinny towers is another mitigating factor. And for areas that are seismic, “slenderer buildings are not advisable,” he said.
The races for tallest and skinniest buildings are matched only by the competition for most expensive apartments and condos. The highest-priced units in the 316,000-sf building at 111 W. 57th, which is developed by JDS Development Group and Property Markets Group, reportedly are going for around $100 million.
Related Stories
| Aug 25, 2014
Tall wood buildings: Surveying the early innovators
Timber has been largely abandoned as a structural solution in taller buildings during the last century, in favor of concrete and steel. Perkins+Will's Rebecca Holt writes about the firm's work in surveying the burgeoning tall wood buildings sector.
| Aug 25, 2014
'Vanity space' makes up large percentage of world's tallest buildings [infographic]
Large portions of some skyscrapers are useless space used to artificially enhance their height, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.
| Aug 25, 2014
Photographer creates time-lapse video of 1 WTC using 30,000 photos
Choosing from 30,000 photos he took from the day construction began in 2006 to the day when construction was finished in 2012, Brooklyn-based photographer Benjamin Rosamund compressed 1,100 photos to create the two-minute video.
| Aug 19, 2014
Goettsch Partners unveils design for mega mixed-use development in Shenzhen [slideshow]
The overall design concept is of a complex of textured buildings that would differentiate from the surrounding blue-glass buildings of Shenzhen.
| Aug 15, 2014
First look: RMJM’s 'jumping fish' tower design for the Chinese Riviera
The tower's fish-jumping gesture is meant to symbolize the prosperity and rapid transformation of Zhuhai, China.
| Aug 12, 2014
Shading prototype could allow new levels of environmental control for skyscraper occupants
Developed by architects at NBBJ, Sunbreak uses a unique three-hinged shade that morphs from an opaque shutter to an abstract set of vertical blinds to an awning, depending on what is needed.
| Aug 6, 2014
Vegetated residential tower breaks ground in Taiwan
With vegetated balconies reaching the full height of the 100-meter tower, the One More residential development aims to establish a relationship between its residents and nature.
| Aug 5, 2014
New bomb-proof concrete mixture used in One World Trade Center
The new concrete mix deforms instead of breaking, removing the threat of flying debris in an explosive attack.
| Jul 30, 2014
Wolf Point high-rise development begins construction in Chicago
Designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, the 48-story luxury residential tower is part of a three-tower mixed-use development along the Chicago River.
| Jul 24, 2014
High-rise 'slum' in Venezuela to be shuttered
Authorities have decided to move 4,400 squatters out of Venezuela's third-tallest skyscraper, allegedly to investigate the structural soundness of the tower.
