Underneath the property are 60 rock anchors that descend about 21m into the bedrock, while the structure itself has a 9.1m square reinforced concrete core with 0.76m thick walls located in its centre. For this segment I am going to focus on the numbers and features behind 432 Park Avenue because being the thinnest of the lot it had the most complications. The structural problems of a super slender skyscraper:Īs you can imagine, with such high height to width ratios, the process of building these slender skyscrapers requires somewhat of an engineering masterclass. Wait until we get onto the prices of these properties for even more astronomical ridiculousness! 432 Park Avenue (you can see two of the structural windbreak layers here) – Photo by Dimitry Anikin on Unsplash Ultimately, the fact that something invisible like ‘air space’ can be given a quantifiable price and traded amongst people is a clear indictment of the spurious nature of the Capitalist market. Not all of the skyscrapers on Billionaires’ Row share ratios that extreme, but they do all share the common principle of buying up air rights like it’s a winner-takes-all game of Monopoly. As was the case with Billionaires’ row, the actual floor lot sizes are relatively tiny and if we take a look at 432 Park Avenue and 111W57th Street in particular, the height to width ratios are an incredible 15:1 and 24:1 respectively. It is important to note that since 1961, a property only has to share 10 feet (around 3m) of their lot line, which if you equate to Midtown urban building perimeters is a very short distance for both properties to share. With air rights being tangible assets people can buy and sell, the end result is developers buying up adjacent air rights and proceeding to stack them on top of their own existing floor area. Diagram showing the different ways of arranging the floor space of a lot in NYC, FAR = Floor Area Ratio, BCR = Building Coverage Ratio (Designed by CMG Lee) The ‘Floor Area Ratio’ which underpins New York’s zoning legislation dictates buildings can’t exceed the floor area designated to that single lot, however as the diagram below shows, while the overall floor area doesn’t change developers can stack up their floor space to gain taller structures.
Also referred to by the term ‘Transferable Development Rights’, air rights can be sold to neighbouring properties if they’re unused. In essence, a property owns all the invisible air space that is directly above their lot diameter – an asset that in a heavily populated ground level area is extremely valuable in the real estate market. Dating back to 1797, the idea of air rights is legally encoded in the Latin phrase: “Cuius est solum, eius usque ad caelum et ad inferos”, translating to mean “For whoever owns the soil, it is theirs up to heaven and down to hell”. It is along the southern border of Central Park, in the area dubbed Billionaires’ Row, that the hub of these New York pencil-thin skyscrapers are located.Ī pivotal concept to understand when analysing these super thin structures is something called ‘air rights’.
While in Dubai and other more sparsely developed locations, these structures can be designed with wide bases and sprawling foundations, the already confined space of Midtown Manhattan has led to the genesis of a new obsession for developers: super slender skyscrapers. The epitome of this phenomenon has got to be the addition of entirely pointless masts and spires on skyscrapers incorporated solely to make them taller than their competitors. While they may look the part, these structures are no more than glass vanity projects for countries and cities to boost their image. Realistically, do we need the ridiculously tall and thin skyscrapers being constructed in places like New York, Dubai and East Asia? Absolutely not. In recent decades, the urban architectural landscape has seen a resurgence in the arms battle for who can build the tallest buildings. Understanding Billionaires’ Row and New York’s zoning laws Centred around 57 th Street, there has always been controversy linked to these ultra-expensive developments but it has been more recent events surrounding the supertall skyscraper, 432 Park Avenue, that have inspired today’s post. It’s worth noting that these units have been purchased, but due to a plethora of reasons, their uninhabited status for the majority of the year has created a billion dollar ghost town in the heart of Manhattan. Many of the super slender skyscrapers in this area were designed through the focus of a residential lens and yet like many elite real estate developments, a lot of the units remain empty. A product of New York City’s property boom in the recent years, the area along the southern end of Central Park dubbed ‘Billionaires’ Row’ is beginning to have its luxury and idyllic veneer removed.
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