With a total height of 1,428 feet, the residential tower 111W57th by SHoP Architects will be among the tallest buildings in New York. This project will become as a prominent new local and regional landmark, when it wraps up construction some time in 2020.
The tower’s form is a bold innovative approach thank to using an authentic material from the golden age of the Manhattan skyscraper: terra-cotta. Whit nearly 43,000 terra-cotta pieces, mechanically fastened to a unitized aluminum curtain wall system, the ceramic strips was designed using a 3-D wave geometry generated by a computational script. Ceramic blocks extruded, glazed, and then stacked into an involute pattern, like a softly breaking wave, that appears at once novel and familiar. Staggering those elements across the facade creates a distinctive moiré that changes dramatically when seen in different lights or from various distances. This geometrical focused idea by SHoP was adapted by NBK Terracotta to conform to the specific fabrication parameters of the ceramic pieces.
In this post, FIELD Condition shows us very closely the installation of the terra-cotta, bronze, and glass curtain wall, which has reached the last quarter of the 82-story tower.
All images credited to FIEDL Condition
