Head over to Manhattan’s far west side, and you’ll spot a new skyscraper on the block.
Twisting more than 300 metres into the sky, The Spiral is the latest
super tall building taking shape on New York City’s ever evolving skyline.
But this isn’t just any old skyscraper.
In a sea of glass, The Spiral will add a small touch of green through
its cascading landscaped terraces that will, yes, spiral around the building.
The project is out to set a new standard for office design, and finds itself completing at a
time when the office tower is having a bit of an identity crisis. After sitting
empty for nearly two years, there’s now a battle underway to lure workers back to their offices.
‘One thing that can’t happen - you can’t stay home in your pyjamas all day.’
The Spiral pulls out all the stops. Sustainable building practices,
indoor-outdoor spaces and a glimpse of nature 300 metres in the air. But will it mark the
start of a new look for the New York skyscraper, or end up as an exception in the concrete jungle?
When it completes later in 2022, The Spiral will be the fourth supertall
building to come out of the Hudson Yards neighbourhood.
That’s a new area, platformed over a live rail yard which – following a massive rezoning effort
throughout the 2000s – has seen an explosion of construction projects in recent years.
The new zoning codes have led to hotels, shops,
and new public space all opening up in the district.
In 2016, the architects of Bjarke Ingels Group unveiled plans for a $3.7BN
skyscraper at 66 Hudson Yards with Tischman Speyer as developers.
Its design took inspiration from the spiral forms commonly found in the natural world
and attempted to combine them with New York’s classic skyscraper architecture.
Now, wind back to the early 1900s and there was very little regulation on building size
and use in New York. As towers became taller and more densely packed, the streets of Lower
Manhattan were getting darkened by their harsh shadows and city planners began to get concerned.
So in 1916, they passed a detailed zoning resolution.
Unlike other cities, its code didn’t impose any specific height limitations.
Instead, high-rises had to remain within a diagonal plane from the base
so that light and air could still stretch to the streets below.
This regulation shaped buildings into stepped-pyramids or ‘wedding-cake’ designs. You
might recognize this feature as part of the Art Deco style or for those of you less up to speed
with your architectural eras, it’s the building shape in all the Batman movies and comics.
Throughout these decades, the famous New York skyline was revolutionised as distinctive
skyscrapers sprung up right across Manhattan - think Rockefeller Centre and The Empire State.
It wasn’t until 1961 when the law was revised to account for more
modern infrastructure like parking for cars and
open office space. That law is still in effect for New York City buildings today.
Despite the outdated 1916 code, The Spiral still tries to embrace the classic New York form
while recognising that more than 100 years have now gone by.
There are more modern materials, floor to ceiling glass panels that enclose over the
stepped back architecture and what the developers call “sustainable construction practices”.
As The Spiral was going up, it used two main hoisting towers so that workers and
materials could be transported quickly and efficiently, up and down the tower.
Unlike traditional construction methods, workers were in an enclosed platform made
up of mesh panels. The material minimised wind and meant they could work faster and
more safely. How would you like to spend your day inside one of these?
Now let’s get onto the building’s namesake. In a city known as ‘the concrete jungle’,
The Spiral introduces a splash of greenery. And no, it’s not another rooftop garden.
Around the building’s exterior is a descending twist of landscaped terraces
filled with vegetation. The building’s “spiral” connects all the way down to the
High Line - New York’s incredibly popular 2 kilometre long elevated linear park.
The idea is for these terraces to give people outdoor access from every floor,
creating the chance for some fresh air
and a break from sitting at a desk all day - something not all other office buildings do.
Imagine being able to take meetings or sip your morning coffee here on a sunny day…even if you
love working in your pyjamas at home, most New Yorkers probably won’t have a garden like this.
In early 2022, plants were just beginning to appear on The Spiral’s facade - and more are
set to be added in the warmer months of the year, including shrubbery, vines, and trees.
Because the spiral is that is a full block building, they have different
weather conditions on every single elevation. So have most sun on south and west,
whereas a northern side sees very little sun on the west side because it's where it's
facing the river is remains extremely windy and because of the shape of the tower too,
we are experiencing pretty extreme wind speeds in the winter months at tower corners. Therefore,
every single from basically ecology says I'm right on each of the glasses is catered to those too.
Once greenery fills each terrace, The Spiral will introduce an automated irrigation system,
so that every plant is properly watered.
We use every terrace as a as a capture surface to retain rainwater, basically pump it back
into tanks throughout the building and then
reintroduce it into our irrigation system for the terraces after that, right. So actually actively
using all our horizontal surfaces, so to sustainably manage rainwater.
The Spiral’s exterior certainly brings something fresh to the
city’s architecture - head inside and that fresh vibe continues.
In most skyscrapers, floors typically operate in isolation from one another like this.
But inside The Spiral, the outside terraces become double atriums. These are all
interconnected between one another in hopes to spur interaction between workers and offer an
alternative to elevators - this may be a little more pleasant than your sixth floor walkup?
Green in design and colour - these features all contribute to the building’s effort to achieve
LEED Gold Standard - that’s the global framework for structures to be environmentally friendly.
The architects at BIG also hope that the integration between
nature and the office will set the standard for future workplaces.
I think in addition to seeing plants in vertical elevations, we're excited about
seeing people at vertical elevations I would to encourage my colleagues to consider that
it's not only about giving the view, but it's actually it's actually, in a sense,
giving back to the city by occupying its vertical space
That’s not to say that The Spiral didn’t come without its challenges.
What is difficult about the spiral is is the spiral itself because you have to imagine that
every single floor with cantilever, the building in by two and a half feet. So there's there's a
constant step, which was a lot of pressure on the stiffness of the building before. So it is
as if at everyone the building is trying to pull itself apart and hence once the stiffness of our
steel reinforced concrete floor was of great importance. We did have to provide horizontal
trusses at every floor to contain building sort of willing willingness to to pull itself apart.
Right now about 70 percent of the property is leased.
The largest tenant signed on is Pfizer – the firm behind many of our COVID-19
vaccines – but other notable companies include Turner Construction and Alliance Bernstein.
Of course it remains to be seen just how green this tower’s spiralling garden will
become and whether its design features will be enough to lure
office workers back, but judging from its appearance as it nears completion,
it’s likely to make a colourful mark on New York’s skyline of concrete, steel, and glass.
Vertical urban greenery has been on the rise in recent decades - but mostly outside the US.
Bosco Verticale in Milan and One Central Park in Sydney are just a couple of example.s
If we proved to be a successful one, growing that vertical garden on a skyscraper and
then and managing it such that it does spark and that that efficiency rate, the productivity, the
willingness of the workforce to actually come to an office environment or return to it.
The Spiral hopes to drive the idea of sustainable design for
New York’s future skyscrapers - especially its office buildings.
Yes, it’s one of the first of its kind in this city, but perhaps the concrete jungle
might have a whole new look in years to come.
If you enjoyed this video and would like to get
more from the definitive video channel for construction, subscribe to The B1M.