CLOSE AD ×

ODA reveals two new boxy New York City towers, each featuring an urban forest

ODA reveals two new boxy New York City towers, each featuring an urban forest

ODA recently unveiled two major New York City projects, both of which are tall and expectedly boxy. The first is a 600-foot-tall, super-skinny tower near the United Nations. The Daily News reported that the building has “six 16-foot-high gaps in the facade—each filled with a full-floor, canopied green space that will wrap around the core of the tower.”

The visual effect is a series of glass and, what appears to be, steel boxes that are suspended off the tower’s main spine. The extremely narrow structure has 2,600-square-foot floor plates, which the News points out are one-third the size of those in Vinoly’s supertall 432 Park Avenue. If the city approves the project, construction is expected to start in September and wrap up in late 2017.

Just days after that project was revealed, NY YIMBY published a rendering of another ODA project in Lower Manhattan. This 229,000-square-foot tower also has a boxy aesthetic, but appears more sculptural due to the notched-out corner terraces. But most surprising about the design is the small forest that is planted on top of the building. Based on drawings, the trees would be planted behind a 12-foot parapet and grow to a height of about 40 feet. Executing this will be tricky, so we’ll just wait and see if the urban forest takes root.


CLOSE AD ×