World’s best tall building: BIG’s unique biophilic New York skyscraper
by arslan_ahmed | October 31, 2023 12:34 pm
The Spiral, a 66-story commercial high-rise designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), was crowned the world’s best tall building by The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). The ziggurat-inspired building features a unique facade featuring green cascading terraces on its exterior.
Situated on West 34th Street in Manhattan, N.Y.C., between Hudson Boulevard and 10th Avenue, the building spans 260,128 m2 (2.8 million sf), reaching a height of 314 m (1,031.5 ft). The Spiral features cascading landscaped terraces and hanging gardens that form a continuous green ribbon, offering outdoor space on each office floor.
With around 1,208 m2 (13,000 sf) of outdoor space, the tower’s unique landscape, located at or above 91.44 m (300 ft), features native plant species on the ground to withstand wind and drought. As the building ascends, it includes winter-blooming shrubs and taller bushes and tops it off with flowering trees, alongside vertical trellises adorned with English and Boston ivy that remain leafy during the winter. The plant selection varies on each side of the building, based on sun exposure and wind resistance.
The Spiral, developed by Tishman Speyer and constructed by Turner Construction, recently opened its doors to major companies such as Pfizer, Debevoise & Plimpton, Turner Construction, and HSBC.
From the street, The Spiral resembles a conservatory and offers glimpses of its spacious lobby adorned with Dutch studio DRIFT’s artwork. The lobby’s seven different metals pay homage to the area’s industrial history, mimicking the High Line’s precast concrete planks’ dimensions.
Designed by BIG in collaboration with Adamson Associates, WSP Cantor Seinuk, and other partners, the tower nods to iconic Manhattan skyscrapers such as the Empire State Building and the Rockefeller Center, while embracing modern materials and detailing.
“Designed for the people who occupy it, The Spiral ensures that every floor of the tower opens to the outdoors, creating hanging gardens and cascading atria that connect the open floor plates from the ground floor to the summit into a single uninterrupted workspace,” says Bjarke Ingels, founder and creative director of BIG.
Source URL: https://www.constructionspecifier.com/worlds-best-tall-building-bigs-unique-biophilic-new-york-skyscraper/