Image courtesy Hayri Atak Architectural Design Studio
Hayri Atak Architectural Design Studio, based in Istanbul, Turkey, has revealed designs for Sarcostyle Tower, Manhattan, New York City. The building’s amorphous shaping and different statics stand out from similar structures on the city’s infamous skyline.
The literal translation of ‘sarcostlye’ is “one of many contractile filaments that make up a striated muscle fiber.” The 210-m (688-ft), 75,000-m² (807,293-sf) tower shares similar characteristics.
“This structure, which we put forward as a concept project in Manhattan, looks quite striking with the difference created by both its form and materials on the silhouette. It was a work we had planned to design for a long time,” the firm said.
When the building is examined in general, the first effect is that it creates an image in the mind that is tangent to all of the other neighboring structures. However, it does not exactly resemble any of them. It is a first step project that feeds ideas with concepts such as anatomy and cell and it reveals its basis clearly with its amorphous shaping and its completely different statics from similar structures.
“In the design of the ‘Sarcostyle Tower,’ Hayri Atak Architectural Design Studio has intertwined elements of the architecture into a sinuously-shaped structure that seemingly coils in on itself,” Designboom reports. “This creates a series of voids that lend the project a sense of ghostly transparency, and offer different interpretations depending on where the building is viewed from. In this way, ‘Sarcostyle Tower’ demonstrates ever-changing perspectives that catch the eye and engage with their surroundings.”
It is hard enough to make smart and energy-friendly building to save the earth, these sculptural efforts should have a true energy rating that would embarrass even a student.
Hey Tapani…Your comment is right on!
While I agree that every building needs to embody sustainability to a high level, especially one of this scale, how do you know to prejudge it just by its form alone?
From the scantily of info in the project that’s published here, I have no idea how to evaluate the buildings sustainability.
Your question got me thinking, so this is mainly just me thinking “out loud”. Please don’t take it as a targeted reply against you.
1) Floorspace.
Assuming there is demand for floorspace, this building will limit how much floorspace can be supplied due to all that empty space. So if demand exceeds what this building can supply, then another building will be built. (Sustainability of two buildings)<(Sustainability of one).
2) HVAC
All those "filaments" will require more ducts, fans, accessory equipment, and energy than a regular floorplan. Not to mention all the additional surface area for thermal energy loss in the winter.
3) Elevators
They're going to need elevators in each of those four corners, which requires more space than just a cluster of elevators in the center of a building. And if your office is halfway up the building and you want to visit your friend at the same altitude, but in a different corners, you'll need to take an elevator up and then down to go, and then return. So much more energy will be consumed by elevators.
4) Maintenance
How in the world will they clean those windows?
What a joke. Does Kenilworth media have an editor? This isn’t newsworthy. It’s atrocious. Fantastically expensive to build. A terrible use of floor area.
Worst of all, by publishing this hubris, some poor foreign national will be conned into “investing” in the development.
Shame on you.
Study impact of reflected light on surrounding buildings in Manhattan and across the East River, air traffic, migratory birds. My hunch is this is a very bad approach.