Construction Update: Pearl House at 160 Water Street
Construction is nearing completion at Vanbarton Group’s Pearl House, an office-to-rental conversion in the Seaport district in Lower Manhattan. Led by Gensler, this is the city’s largest office-to-residential conversion to date. Interventions to the existing office tower include altering building cores, retrofitting operable windows, and new floors on top of the existing structures.
When completed, the development will offer over 30,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor private club-inspired amenities over three floors. The lobby will feature a sculptural brass staircase along with lounges and a reception desk. The concourse level below will offer a Technogym, bowling alley, sports simulator, game room, craft-making workspace, children’s playroom, children’s playroom, pet grooming salon, spa, and interconnected social lounges. Floor 28 will feature a terrace, lounges, co-working space, a player’s lounge with a sports book room, a full size bar, and chef’s kitchen.
Lobby lounge.
Lower Manhattan view from the 28th floor amenity terrace.
Midtown Manhattan view from the 28th floor amenity terrace.
Residences will range in size from studios, to 1- and 2-bedroom apartments. The Gensler-designed residences feature custom kitchens with stone countertops, integrated appliances, and bathrooms with Italian porcelain tile.
Architect: Gensler; Developer: Vanbarton Group; Program: Residential; Location: Seaport District, New York, NY; Completion: 2024.
Tour: Century Plaza
Southeast corner of the site from Avenue of the Stars.
Construction is wrapping up on Next Century Partners’ Century Plaza in the Century City neighborhood of Los Angeles. The development includes the restoration of Minoru Yamasaki’s Century Plaza hotel (originally opened in 1966) and two new 44-story towers designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.
Northwest corner of the site from Constellation Boulevard.
Looking up at the south facade of the towers from Solar Way.
Restoration of the 400-room Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel has been overseen by Marmol Radziner with guestrooms and public space interiors by Yabu Pushelberg. The hotel will offer a gourmet café, an American brasserie, a rooftop bar, a 14,000-square-foot spa, and two ballrooms. Along with hotel guest rooms, the restored hotel structure will also offer 63 single-story and townhouse homes designed by Yabu Pushelberg.
Entry plaza with a sculpture by Jaume Plensa.
Restored entry canopy at the Century Plaza Hotel.
Century Plaza Hotel lobby.
Hotel restaurant.
Spa.
Rooftop terrace.
The two 535-foot tall residential towers feature facades of floor-to-ceiling bent glass and glass enclosed terraces. Residents will have access to a collection of amenities that include a pool, fitness center and spa, screening room, library, game room, wine cellars, party spaces, and concierges.
Looking up at the towers (center, right) and restored hotel (right).
Architect: Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, Gensler; Interiors: Marmol Radziner (Century Plaza Hotel), Yabu Pushelberg (Tower Residences); Landscape Architect: Rios Clementi Hale Studio; Developer: Next Century Partners; Program: Hotel, Residential, Retail; Location: Century City, Los Angeles, CA; Completion: 2021.
Tour: Museum of Modern Art Renovation and Expansion
The Museum of Modern Art is ready for it’s reopening later this month, with expanded gallery space, renovations to existing entry and gallery spaces, and a new museum store.
Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Gensler, the MoMA’s expansion occupies two sites to the west of the existing museum. Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects‘ Folk Art Museum occupied the first site from its completion in 2001 until demolition in 2014. The rest of the expansion is located in the base of the adjacent Jean Nouvel tower 53 West 53.
The museum’s main entrance is now marked by a large cantilevered metal canopy at West 53rd Street. Inside, the lobby ceiling height has been raised and the museum store has been relocated one floor below to open up views outward from the lobby. Ticketing desks have also been installed in new locations in the ground floor lobby.
A new blade stair serves as the circulation spine of the new gallery spaces in the west expansion. A solid six inch divider hangs from the roof structure to support the bead blast stainless steel panels and solid northern oak treads and risers. Glass balustrades are cantilevered off of the stair and held in place by pins. The walls of the stairway are clad in bird’s eye maple with acoustic micro-perforations. A separate blackened stainless steel stair at the sixth floor leads to the cafe.
The museum’s expansion includes 47,000 square feet of new and renovated gallery space. Along with the five floors of new gallery space in the west building, some of the galleries added in the Taniguchi expansion of 2004 have also been renovated and reconfigured.
Architects: Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler; Client: The Museum of Modern Art; Program: Museum; Location: Midtown, New York, NY; Completion: October 2019.
Construction Update: 25 Kent Avenue
East facade from Wythe Avenue.
Construction is underway on 25 Kent, an eight-story office building in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, from developers Rubenstein Partners and Heritage Equity Partners. The 500,000-square-foot project occupies a full block with a massing design that features a north and south bar centrally connected. Both bars step back on their north and south street facing facade to allow for rooftop terraces on each floor. The facade will feature brick and punched window on the north and south of both bars with a glass curtain wall on the east and west. Design of the project is led by Gensler, with concept design by Hollwich Kushner.
Southwest corner from Kent Avenue.
West facade from Kent Avenue.
Northeast corner from Wythe Avenue.
Facade mockup.
Northwest corner from Kent Avenue.
Architect: Gensler (Design and Executive Architect), Hollwich Kushner (Concept Design); Structural Engineer: Desimone; Mechanical Engineer: Cosentini; Developers: Rubenstein Partners, Heritage Equity Partners; Program: Office, Retail; Location: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY; Completion: 2018.
Construction Update: 388-390 Greenwich Street
Construction is underway on the renovation of 388-390 Greenwich Street tower. Located at the Hudson River waterfront in Tribeca, the 1988 structures serve as the headquarters for Citigroup. Design of the exterior renovation portion of the project is led by SOM and includes a full glass reclad of the 10-story building at 390 Greenwich Street and the partial reclad of the adjacent 39-story tower at 388 Greenwich Street. Renovation of the interiors for both buildings is led by Gensler.
Architects: SOM and Gensler; Program: Office; Location: Tribeca, New York, NY; Completion: 2018.
CUMC Vagelos Education Center
Looking west on West 171st Street.
New York's latest, high-profile education building has opened on the campus of Columbia University Medical College in Washington Heights. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Gensler, the 14-story Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center houses classroom, simulation and training facilities for the college.
Close-up of the "Study Cascade" at the southeast corner.
Southeast corner from Haven Avenue.
Looking up at the east facade from Haven Avenue.
The building's iconic feature is the "Study Cascade," a south facing 14-story space, connected by a grand stair, with a variety of indoor spaces for individual and group interaction, outdoor rooms and terraces that foster collaborative learning amongst students and faculty. With the "Study Cascade" DS+R has sought to subvert the normative medical building typology by rethinking its circulation strategy, which the studio has focused on in a wide range of projects over the past few decades.
The "Study Cascade" at the south facade.
Southwest corner of the "Study Cascade."
GFRC paneling and Douglas fir wood clad the solid forms of the "Study Cascade," while the transparency of floor-to-ceiling glass with glass fin supports allows for open views of Manhattan and the Hudson River.
Close-up of the "Study Cascade" at the south facade.
West facade.
Looking up at the west facade.
Looking southeast from an outdoor terrace on the 13th floor.
View south from an outdoor terrace.
Grand stair at the lobby.
Architects: Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Gensler; Structural Engineer: Leslie E. Robertson Associates (LERA); Program: Education; Location: Washington Heights, New York, NY; Completion: 2016.
CUMC Medical and Graduate Education Building
Curtain wall installation continues at Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Gensler's 14-story building for the Columbia University Medical College. Most of the panels are up on the west façade, where the first panels appeared late last year. More of the non-uniform structural beams, clad in a white shell, are also apparent on the west façade. The cladding of the east façade has started as well, with fully opaque panels at the base that transition in a gradient to fully transparent panels at the southern end. While structurally fully formed in concrete, the "Study Cascade" still awaits its enclosure, which will be a crucial detail that determines how successfully the constructed building achieves the powerful concept in the renderings.
Looking north on Haven Avenue.
Southeast corner from Haven Avenue.
Southeast corner from Haven Avenue.
South façade.
Southwest corner.
Southwest corner.
West façade detail.
East façade.
East façade detail.
East façade from West 171st Street.
Northeast corner from Haven Avenue.
Architects: Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Gensler; Program: Education; Location: Washington Heights, New York, NY; Completion: 2016.
CUMC Medical and Graduate Education Building
Construction has surpassed the half way mark at Columbia University Medical Center's Medical and Graduate Education Building. The 14-story building, a collaboration between Diller Scofidio + Renfro (design architects) and Gensler (executive architects), will house P&S, Nursing, Dental Medicine, the Mailman School of Public Health, and the biomedical departments. Inside, the tower contains classrooms, spaces for collaboration, and a simulation center. The tower's dominant feature is the "Study Cascade," a 14-story open stair along the south facade that provides spaces for study and for social engagement to encourage collaboration among all of the disciplines housed together.
Looking north along Haven Avenue.
Detail of the "Study Cascade."
The southeast corner of the building.
The south facade.
The southwest corner of the building.
The east facade from Haven Avenue.
Detail of the east facade.
Detail of the northeast corner.
Aerial rendering of the completed building. Courtesy of CUMC.
Architects: Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Gensler; Program: Education; Location: Washington Heights, New York, NY; Completion: 2016.