BIG architects: west 57th residential building, new york

‘west 57th’ by bjarke ingels group in new york city all images courtesy bjarke ingels group

internationally renowned danish architects bjarke ingels group has revealed their design of ‘west 57th’, a new 600-unit residential building in new york city. located between 11th and 12th avenues adjacent to the hudson river, the building is the firm’s first project in northern america.

‘new york is rapidly becoming an increasingly green and livable city. the transformation of the hudson river waterfront and the highline into green parks, the ongoing effort to plant a million trees, the pedestrianization of broadway and the creation of more miles of bicycle lanes than the entire city of my native copenhagen are all evidence of urban oases appearing all over the city. with west 57th, we attempt to continue this transformation into the heart of the city fabric – into the center of a city block,’ says bjarke ingels, founder of BIG.

street view

sampling from both european and american typologies of density housing, the design explores a new hybrid standard that combines a traditional courtyard building with manhattan’s highrise form. after compactness and efficiency is achieved through a perimeter block organization, the north-east corner is pulled up vertically to a height of 142 m. by keeping the other three corners low to street level, the courtyard is opened towards the hudson river, providing views and sunlight into every unit.

the dynamic form of the building shifts dramatically according to the viewer’s vantage point: from the west site highway, the building takes on a warped pyramid-like appearance while on west 58th street, the residential complex resembles a slender glass spire. the courtyard remains visually accessible from the street to serve as an extension from the adjacent greenery of the hudson river park.

hudson river park

view from an upper unit terrace

view from west 58th street

street front

night view

a cross between a traditional manhattan high-rise with a european perimeter block

schematic diagrams

resulting form facilitates natural daylight and views

physical model

from the hudson river

W57 – West 57th Residential Building video courtesy of BIG

project info:

client: durst fetner residentials size: 80,000 m2 collaborators: SLCE architects (architect of record), starr whitehouse landscape architects, thornton tomasetti (structural), dagher engineering (MEP), langan engineering (civil), hunter roberts (construction manager), philip habib & assoc. (transportation), israel berger & assoc. (building envelope), nancy packes (marketing), van deusen &assoc. (vertical transportation), cerami & assoc. (acoustical), CPP (wind), AKRF (environmentla), german glessner (renderings & animation)

partner in charge: bjarke ingels project leader: beat schenk project architect: sören grünert team: thomas christoffersen, celine jeanne, daniel sundlin, alessandro ronfini, aleksander tokarz, alessio valmori, alvaro garcia mendive, felicia guldberg, gabrielle nadeau, ho kyung lee, julian liang, julianne gola, lucian racovitan, marcela martinez, maria nikolova, minjae kim, mitesh dixit, nicklas rasch, riccardo mariano, stanley lung, steffan heath, thilani rajarathna, xu li