NEW YORK | 432 Park Avenue (Drake Hotel dev.) | (1,398) FT / 432 M | 89 FLOORS

[FMIII]

Originally Posted by NYguy

Again, you've failed to show why it is "out of place". It's as much taller than Trump World Tower than it is some of if its own neighbors. Same for Citicorp. There's a reason those towers stand out on the skyline.

Trump World Tower is the Tower which shares the most numerous design similarities with 432 Park Avenue. It is a rectangular box, it's slender and quite tall. Therefore, 432 would have looked much better if it had been built closer to it. I prefer cohesion to disorder.

Hence, I repeat that from the render, 432 looks out of place. But I guess a lot of people had the same feeling with numerous NY's skyscraper before they were built. The one that comes to my mind instantaneously is the Metlife (former Pan Am) building on Park Avenue.

Every new NY supertall is a present, too bad developers don't care about the general picture. In this case, you really feel that they combined the available footprint and air rights and maximised this combination as a vulgar computer would have done.

Sometimes it works, sometime it doesn't.

[hunser]

^ It won't look out of place once those other Big Boys get started (Tower Verre, 225W 57th St etc). Someone has to break ground, no?

[ATLksuGUY]

[Stained]

I want developers to strive to build the tallest and most functional buildings for their lots and restrictions. This building might turn out to be gorgeous upon completion, whether through lighting or other details. I welcome the fact that it is "out of place." So many cities seem to think that you are only allowed to build tall buildings around other tall buildings, boxes around other boxes, ect. It takes someone to make the first move to reshape a cityscape and change attitudes.

Anyway, I am excited for this building and hope that we get a final design very soon.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by FMIII

Trump World Tower is the Tower which shares the most numerous design similarities with 432 Park Avenue. It is a rectangular box, it's slender and quite tall. Therefore, 432 would have looked much better if it had been built closer to it. I prefer cohesion to disorder.

Hence, I repeat that from the render, 432 looks out of place. But I guess a lot of people had the same feeling with numerous NY's skyscraper before they were built. The one that comes to my mind instantaneously is the Metlife (former Pan Am) building on Park Avenue.

Well, there you go. However, I think the fact that you feel its most similar is design (or form) to Trump World Tower is all the more reason they shouldn't be closer. But they are relatively close in the grand scheme of the Midtown skyline, which as always, is a work in progress. Only now more so than ever. As for tall and boxy, welcome to Midtown!



Cam shot from today (July 2, 2012)

[JACKinBeantown]

Are those three pillars part of the structure or part of the retaining wall?

[Brian Dino Vabec]

Originally Posted by JACKinNYC

Are those three pillars part of the structure or part of the retaining wall?

Structure. Right now you can see commercial elevator shaft being formed on the left side of site.

[Lecom]

Originally Posted by FMIII

Hence, I repeat that from the render, 432 looks out of place. But I guess a lot of people had the same feeling with numerous NY's skyscraper before they were built. The one that comes to my mind instantaneously is the Metlife (former Pan Am) building on Park Avenue.

Every new NY supertall is a present, too bad developers don't care about the general picture. In this case, you really feel that they combined the available footprint and air rights and maximised this combination as a vulgar computer would have done.

If you think about it, the Empire State Building itself was not only a gross intrusion upon the largely mid/lowrise Midtown South, but also a case of developer abuse of available building envelope provided by local zoning regulations. Those greedy guys created just enough setbacks so they could build a ridiculously tall tower right on top of the bulk at the bottom. As for the general picture, the tower is so tall that it would cast a permanent shadow over Bryant Park a few blocks to the north, forever ruining that magnificent urban space.

[jsr]

Originally Posted by Lecom

If you think about it, the Empire State Building itself was not only a gross intrusion upon the largely mid/lowrise Midtown South, but also a case of developer abuse of available building envelope provided by local zoning regulations. Those greedy guys created just enough setbacks so they could build a ridiculously tall tower right on top of the bulk at the bottom. As for the general picture, the tower is so tall that it would cast a permanent shadow over Bryant Park a few blocks to the north, forever ruining that magnificent urban space.

No doubt, and even worse the owners get rather pissy if you even contemplate building something else tall nearby....

[FrancoRey]

Just noticed this guy got started again not that long ago. What a pencil tower! I am amazed at the sheer height more than anything. NYC's tallest by roof height will be a random hotel/condo tower!

In the above photo you mentioned the wall is part of the structure. When will they start drilling and sinking caissons? Is the process for building the foundation here a different process because of the proximity of surrounding structures? How did they manage both digging the hole and building that concrete sheer wall/foundation shell without destroying those other buildings' foundations? I can't imagine any even go more than 2 stories below the ground. I would be concerned about erosion at the base of those old structures. Would love to know if anyone knows the process.

[scalziand]

^The neighboring buildings, and eventually 432 Park, are built directly on the bedrock, so there's no need top prop up the neighbors or have caissons for this tower.

[JACKinBeantown]

^ Manhattan is pretty much one giant chunk of granite.

[FrancoRey]

^ Interesting. I remember having read in the past that Manhattan had lots of bedrock formations close to the surface (The limestone and granite formations in Central Park come to mind). I guess I just didn't realize the extent of how prevalent it is in the whole region, and how CLOSE it is to the surface.

No wonder skyscrapers got so popular here! Cost savings and less foundation work! (well, one good reason)

Conversely, my hometown in Denver has caissons that go roughly hundreds of feet below the surface on some bigger towers since our bedrock is so far down. Don't know how much cost that adds to building a tower there, but I'm sure it's substantial.

[Lecom]

The Manhattan bedrock thing is largely a myth, especially when it comes to the widely popular belief that Downtown and Midtown developed where they are due to bedrock depth.

http://observer.com/2012/01/uncanny-...-of-manhattan/

Mr. Barr, along with two colleagues from Fordham, published a study in December issue of The Journal of Economic History debunking what he calls the Manhattan bedrock myth. Using 173 random core samples from the Battery to Central Park South, Mr. Barr, Troy Tassier and Rossen Trendafilov were able to show that there was no correlation between the depth of bedrock and the likelihood of a skyscrapers construction—in the case of their study, a building at or above 18 stories, which was tall for the time when the city’s two business districts developed between 1890 and 1915.

What the economists found was that some of the tallest buildings of their day were built around City Hall, where the bedrock reaches its deepest point in the city, about 45 meters down, between there and Canal Street, at which point the bedrock begins to rise again toward the middle of the island. Indeed, Joseph Pullitzer built his record-setting New York World Building, a 349-foot colossus, at 99 Park Row, near the nadir, as did Frank Woolworth a decade later.

By studying historical construction data, the researchers were also able to determine that at the extreme, the most a deep bedrock could add to the costs of a building is about 7 percent, and therefore negligible when it comes to the economics of construction. “Compared to the cost of land in Manhattan, that amount is miniscule,” Mr. Barr said.

http://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.c...45-am.png?w=89

If you look at the picture above, 432 Park Avenue would be located roughly at Central Park South, which is quite close to bedrock, but the truth is that in the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter how deep the bedrock really is. Well, it DOES matter, but nowhere near as much as people think.

[Roadcruiser1]

Actually it doesn't really matter if a skyscraper goes to bedrock or not. Nowadays that have built skyscrapers that doesn't reach bedrock by making the foundations strong enough to support the building as a whole. For example the Tokyo Sky City 1,000.

[Aqua_Chicago]

Originally Posted by hunser

^ It won't look out of place once those other Big Boys get started (Tower Verre, 225W 57th St etc). Someone has to break ground, no?

I totally agree

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by FrancoRey

No wonder skyscrapers got so popular here! Cost savings and less foundation work! (well, one good reason)

Bedrock has almost nothing to do with the skyscraper mass in NYC. I don't know who started that rumor, but there isn't really any relationship between bedrock and skyscrapers.

And really, the bedrock in NYC isn't particularly unique. It isn't a cost-saver either. You can built towers in swampland nowadays. Much of the East Side (the densest mass of skyscrapers) was former swampland.

[FrancoRey]

^ All very interesting. Especially Lecom's read. Thanks for sharing.

As a clarification, I was half-joking when saying it was bedrock that encouraged skyscraper construction in NYC. Of course there were a myriad of other factors that influenced the building of towers there much more (the city's location on a major river confluence, growth from the fur trades in the early days and colonial expansion, and subsequent economic growth thereafter, etc).

That being said, in certain locations in the city, it made building up a heck of a lot easier. But yes, nowadays caissons are becoming less of a necessity. Just curious, is there a rule of thumb on caisson depth for building heights? As in, an equilibrium that must be achieved in order for a building's foundation to be level and structurally sound without reaching bedrock? I am asking for the examples of buildings that are out there (like Tokyo Sky Tree) that aren't anchored to bedrock yet are structurally sound and stable. Do they add enough concrete shafts so that they act as 'roots' like in a real tree? Floating concrete and steel slabs that are balanced? Sorry to spam, I just would like to know what other foundation construction methods are out there for taller structures since, up until recently, many relied on caissons anchored to bedrock to avoid ending up like the Tower of Pisa.

[scalziand]

That advance has been made possible by the increased use of friction piles, which are like caissons except the sides are really bumpy. That way they have extra grip with the soil, and the entire load can be carried through the friction on the sides of the caisson instead of being transmitted all the way to the base. As a plus, friction piles can also withstand a significant upward force, which is vital for supporting skyscrapers and other tall structures against the wind.

[NYguy]

There's an entire thread on that bedrock discussion...
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=197150


As far as how the skyline will look, in a couple of years, we'll see this dramatically tall and thin tower fitting in just fine in this view...

marcaux