OMA has shared with us their proposal for the 425 Park Avenue competition, organized by New York City developer L&L Holding Co to replace the existing, ageing tower with a new state-of-the-art, LEED-certified skyscraper. The competition was awarded to Foster + Partners, as reported earlier.
The competition also included Atelier Christian de Portzamparc, Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron, KPF, Maki and Associates, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Richard Meier, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and Zaha Hadid Architects; and all the projects will be presented today at the MAS NY Summit.
OMA’s project was led by partners Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas. Shohei is in charge of the NY office, where he has been researching strategies for towers in NY and other areas, including a skyscraper in Madison Park, a mixed-use project in Jersey and the Bicentennial Tower in Mexico.
More information after the break:
For commercial buildings, Manhattan’s zoning laws prescribe a silhouette from which there is no escape (yet): a stretched pyramid. Our current aesthetics oscillate between nearly exhausted orthogonality and a still immature curvaceousness.
Our building is an intersection of these two observations: it proposes a stack of three cubes—the lower one a full solid block on Park Avenue, the smallest on top, rotated 45 degrees vis a vis the Manhattan grid, oriented beyond its mere location in a sweep from midtown to Central Park.
The three cubes are connected by curved planes to create a subtle alternation of flat and three dimensional planes, each reflecting sky and city in their own way.
The shape is at the same time highly artistic and highly efficient, a diagram of maximum beauty and maximum rentability, combined in a single, Brancusi-like shape. Its geometry at the same time reinforces and escapes the existing city. It resonates with each of its famous neighbors—Seagram, Lever, AT&T, Racquet Club—yet is emphatically futuristic.
Its conceptual model accommodates both the design competition’s request to maintain 25% of the existing building and the entirely-from-scratch scenario with equal ease.
Status: Competition June 2012 Client: L&L Holdings Location: New York, NY, USA Site: 425 Park Avenue, between 55th and 56th St. Program: 564,040 gsf / 52,401 m2 office tower, incorporating 25% of the existing building Tower Height: 634 ft, 37 floors (36 above grade)
Site Area: 27,941 ft2 Office Areas: Base (F1-F5):22,100sf/ Mid volume (F13-F21):14,025sf/ Top volume (F29-F36): 10,070sf
Partners-in-Charge: Shohei Shigematsu, Rem Koolhaas Associate-in-Charge: Jason Long Project Architect: Jake Forster Team: Ted Lin, Sandy Yum, Ahmadreza Schricker, Patrick Hobgood, Daniel Quesada Lombo, Andy Westner, Rob Daurio, Clarisa Garcia Fresco, Carla Hani, Suzan Ibrahim, Christina Argyrou, Cass Nakashima, Lisa Hollywood, Denis Bondar
Structure, MEP / Services, Facade: ARUP Vertical Transportation: Edgett Williams Consulting Group Cost Estimating: Faithful & Gould Models: OMA/ Vincent de Rijk Graphic Design: MTWTF
All images OMA
