Mr Adjaye has designed more buildings than I have, so maybe he knows something I don't, but I'd still have to ask: "Why?"
I don't think there is any structural reason for this - it's going to suffer greater stresses than a conventional skyscraper that can run its supports straight down into the foundations. Aesthetically, it's obscene - the last thing you should want your skyscraper to do is loom over the people below it, as if it's about to collapse. Economically, New York does not need another developer targeting the most expensive types of real estate at the expense of the real estate the city actually needs to function.
Almost everything I've found so far trying to justify it is limited to identity politics: it's designed by a black person to be built by a majority black team, for minority- and female-owned companies, with a facade resembling afro combs. Maybe it's for the sake of the plaza garden, but again I think that would rather be spoiled by having the skyscraper hanging over you like the Sword of Damocles.
The tower floors are most likely hung rather than held--so each floor will be a cantilevered off of a super massive concrete and steel support column. Imagine that behind the facade (which tricks you into thinking the floors are solid and resting on each other) there is instead a little suspension bridge, and the floors are all hung.
It's not at all even slightly creative, and it's not even that difficult to accomplish, architects cantilever shit all the time. It's a practically a fetish for architects now.
Mr Adjaye has designed more buildings than I have, so maybe he knows something I don't, but I'd still have to ask: "Why?"
I don't think there is any structural reason for this - it's going to suffer greater stresses than a conventional skyscraper that can run its supports straight down into the foundations. Aesthetically, it's obscene - the last thing you should want your skyscraper to do is loom over the people below it, as if it's about to collapse. Economically, New York does not need another developer targeting the most expensive types of real estate at the expense of the real estate the city actually needs to function.
Almost everything I've found so far trying to justify it is limited to identity politics: it's designed by a black person to be built by a majority black team, for minority- and female-owned companies, with a facade resembling afro combs. Maybe it's for the sake of the plaza garden, but again I think that would rather be spoiled by having the skyscraper hanging over you like the Sword of Damocles.
The tower floors are most likely hung rather than held--so each floor will be a cantilevered off of a super massive concrete and steel support column. Imagine that behind the facade (which tricks you into thinking the floors are solid and resting on each other) there is instead a little suspension bridge, and the floors are all hung.
It's not at all even slightly creative, and it's not even that difficult to accomplish, architects cantilever shit all the time. It's a practically a fetish for architects now.
He knows what all architects know: how to make buildings as ugly as possible.
neo architecture is more like fashion, prove me wrong