Scribble
To create a new iconic façade without removing and replacing the existing façade, that is the question?
To compete along 57th Street, with some of the most bold and elegant architectural statements night and day, is quite a challenge. Read More
‘Scribble’ is a concept that creates a ‘metal ornamental grille’ over the existing façade, which is 75-80% open across the entire upper floors of 32E57 allowing clear vision from every floor. The retail base becomes a 2-story much larger all glass façade with the same fractured patterns behind to emulate the projected ornamental grille above, which can rise as high on the façade as desired. At night, the ‘crystal clear’ retail base will be ‘crowned’ by the LED backlit modernist ornamentation above, timeless, and dynamic, standing proud along Manhattan’s 57th Street best architectural edifices.
Peekaboo
A floating ‘smooth and sleek’ etched glass wall projects beyond the existing façade that makes for another type of iconic architectural statement along 57th Street.
The ‘grid-like’ glass façade is solid in color, commanding a beautiful solidity etched like the finest crystal, while the centers over the existing windows slowly clear themselves through the ‘mist’ to allow for clear vision from each floor. The floors above playfully seem to play a game of ‘peekaboo’ through the elegance of the stunning glass plane. The lobby entry and retail base, also a 2-story much larger pure glass façade, has the ‘simplicity of clear glass’ playing off the seemingly opaque glass above. Day and night an architectural statement for a prestigious retailer worthy of this address along 57th Street.
Shards
Artistic and bold, ‘shards’ beckons for all to look at me, I’m different, unique and yet I somehow stand proudly amongst the best architecture in Manhattan.
Keeping the retail and lobby base of the building to ultra-simplicity, with its 1st floor and mezzanine clearly visible behind the elegant glass storefront, the façade above makes a strong abstract statement of ‘solid vs void’.
Using a lightweight stone or precast façade over a glass wall, these solid pieces seem to hang like an artistic broken array of building fragments with the floors behind easily having visibility through.
The façade has the feeling of a modernist ‘archeological site’ exposed for all to see, as it makes its presence known to all ‘night and day’ along 57th Street.
Another ‘iconic statement’ which will boldly make 32E57 a landmark remembered as part of the best architectural fabric of Manhattan.
Tracery
Tracery borrows much from the concepts of ‘scribble’ and ‘peekaboo’. The rationale for what was done was to take full advantage of the potential upscale tenant and its fashionable 57th Street address. The total building and the retailer’s brand become one – which creates the major architectural statement and marketing fascination or lure.
The same thought process as ‘scribble’, the idea of a see-through decorative metal screen for the main façade rising above 57th Street was used. The difference would be the use of the ‘logo’ of a ‘chic and classic’ retail brand (the 32E57 retail tenant) to create the woven façade of the building towering above the streetscape.
Basically, in a matter of words, the feeling of the naming rights to a multi-story building along one of New York City’s busiest thoroughfares.
We believe some ‘amazing architecture’ might be created this way. A retailer would feel this ‘marque’ would be worth its weight in gold and a tenant would be quite thrilled to live or work within a structure known for ‘elegance and sophistication’. Please refer to ‘Mercedes House’ a project of ours on West 54th Street. The name played as much a role in its major success as did the architecture.
