Edgar Street Towers / Iwamoto Scott

© IwamotoScott

San Francisco based IwamotoScott sent us their latest tower development produced for the Greenwich South design study led by Architecture Research Office, Beyer Blinder Belle and Architects & Planners and OPEN. Contributing architects, artists and designers included Coen + Partners, DeWitt Godfrey, IwamotoScott Architecture, Jorge Colmbo, Lewis.Tsuramaki.Lewis Architects, Morphosis, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Transolar Climate Engineering and WORKac.

© IwamotoScott

Edgar Street Towers responds to its immediate site context while establishing a strong relationship to the larger urban form of . The design is inspired by earlier visionary projects for that proposed new hybrids of architecture, infrastructure and public space. The towers’ design seeks to reinstate Edgar Street as an east-west public way, reconnecting Greenwich and Washington streets. The space of this passageway through the building twists upwards, rising through the body of the towers, pinching at the mid level to allow for larger floorplates, and culminating at a rooftop sky lobby and civic space. This space at the towers’ crown is aligned with the primary street grid to the north, directly on axis with 5th Avenue.

© IwamotoScott

Edgar Street Towers’ programmatic mixture serves the local neighborhood while enhancing the public realm of lower Manhattan. The scale and mix of uses aims to reflect the grandness of vision and diversity of architectural experiences found for example in the premier civic, cultural and commercial landmarks organized along 5th Avenue to the north. This programmatic mixture is envisioned to include spaces for living, working, art, performance, retail and a branch public library. The program is organized by the towers’ central branching atrium, enhanced by daylight channeled from above via an integrated light-transmitting fiber-optic array. In addition, the atrium deploys bio-filtration terrariums occupying hollow spaces within the floors, thus acting as the building’s lungs to provide clean air to its occupants. By night, the light-flow is reversed, whereby the fiber-optic array is lit from integrated solar-charged battery packs.

© Transparent House

On a macro scale, Edgar Street Towers takes advantage of the visibility and prominence offered by its site, where its dynamic form acts as a civic landmark and beacon for those coming to and leaving the city.

© IwamotoScott

IwamotoScott principals: Lisa Iwamoto & Craig Scott
IwamotoScott project team: Ryan Golenberg, Stephanie Lin, John Kim, Blake Altshuler
Images: IwamotoScott all except NightAerial is by Transparent House

* Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.
Cite: Saieh , Nico. "Edgar Street Towers / Iwamoto Scott" 13 May 2010. ArchDaily. Accessed 18 May 2013. <http://www.archdaily.com/59925>

21 comments

  1. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    nice project from an urban perspective.
    love it.
    the interior spaces and connection between the buildings is very complicated and unclear even though you go to into great detail.
    time for you guys to stop trying so hard and get with the program before your clients loose faith in you.

    Reply
  2. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    wow! this is beautiful! reminds me a little of zaha hadid’s style but a little more practical looking/traditionally futuristic. very nice. hope it’s as practical as it sounds.

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    • Thumb up Thumb down 0

      Yeah, its one thing to do this in Saudi Arabia where stuff magically happens. Its another to do it in the US. Good luck and enjoy your office dinners.

      Reply
  4. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    I agree. The shape is seductive.

    Is the building’s height and shape derived from the NYC Building Code’s projected setbacks? How much of the floor area does the atrium take up and what does it give back in terms of floor efficiency?

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  8. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    look at the plans! so much dead space in that void. Who wants that view from their window?

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  10. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    good luck funding this project, do you guys need a reality check or are you living in a bubble of ignorant yet blissful people?
    i actually kind of like this project from an sculptural point of view, but really, i know we have the knowledge and technology to build this, but why would i want this to be built???

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  15. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    If you look at the diagram (image 29) you can see that the elevators are straight up vertical, they jog over at transfer floors.

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  16. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    rodger: “get with the program”? what program? other than the brief that this was a vision study of an iconic tower, in a later phase of the Greenwich South evolution, with public amenities, that re-connects the context at street level, and that’s a ‘friendly neighbor’(clearly open to interpretation and speculation) – In which case it gets squarely with the program.

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  17. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    when did these commenters become haters and non insightful at all…if you dont like it say way……

    Reply
  18. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    Dubai or New York? nice shape, but is it for New York? in the skyline render looks like a toy… The groundfloor opening is just for cars.. Nice sculpture but not for NYC.

    Reply

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