Among the extraordinary new crop of New York’s super-slim, ultra-luxury residential towers surveyed in The Skyscraper Museum’s exhibition SKY HIGH & the logic of luxury, the most slender of all is the 111 W. 57th St., designed by SHoP Architects, with structural engineering by WSP Group for JDS Development Group and Property Markets Group. With a ratio of the width of the base to height of 1:23, the 1,350+ ft tower will be the most slender building in the world.
SHoP’s design harkens back to the quality, materiality, and emphatic verticality of historic NYC skyscrapers, while utilizing advanced engineering and technology to craft a contemporary contribution to the skyline. The tower’s silhouette rises in an elegant series of feathered setbacks, while the faade reads at multiple scales and vantage points. An intricate pattern of shaped terracotta panels and bronze latticework on the east and west facades creates a sweeping play of light and shadow, while a glass curtain wall on the north and south faades provide sweeping views of Central Park and Midtown.
SHoP Architects was founded in 1996 on a premise of proving that intelligent and evocative architecture can be made in the real world, with real world constraints, and has made a name for itself by pioneering the use of innovative technologies to produce both iconic architectural forms and a new model for the profession.
WSP is one of the world’s leading professional services firms. Its New York-based structural engineer, the WSP Group (formerly Cantor Seinuk) are the designers of the structural systems for a majority of the city’s super-slender towers now under construction.
At Edmond J. Safra Hall, Museum of Jewish Heritage 36 Battery Place, across the street from The Skyscraper Museum.
Speakers
- Vishaan Chakrabarti, Partner, SHoP Architects
- Gregg Pasquarelli, Partner, SHoP Architects
- Silvian Marcus, Principal in Charge, WSP Group
- Carol Willis (moderator), Director of The Skyscraper Museum
- Michael Stern, Managing Partner, JDS Development Group.