50 Hudson Yards, a 78-story office tower covering an entire block in Manhattan’s West Side Hudson Yards neighborhood, is designed as a distinctive piece of the city, mindfully sitting within New York’s urban grid to maximize ease of movement and private access.
Movement through the building is intuitive and efficient, with dedicated lobbies and private elevators for anchor tenants. Visitors enter the tower through the activated street edges and traverse through the building from north to south. The design utilizes conventional, double decker and twin elevators, both of which are not common in a New York commercial office building. Floor to ceiling glazing and generous ceiling heights allow natural light to flood the office spaces—enhancing employee wellbeing.
Officially opened last month, and designed by Foster + Partners, the mixed-use tower contains almost 278,709 m2 (3 million sf) of flexible office space while providing an abundance of retail facilities and new public spaces at ground level. The building acts as a gateway to New York’s vibrant new neighborhood, offering a direct underground connection to the adjacent subway station.
The tower offers panoramic views of Manhattan, with the Hudson River to the west and the Empire State Building to the east. A communal amenity on the 32nd floor features a variety of meeting and event spaces. The top of the tower features a domed stainless-steel lighting installation, designed in collaboration with Jamie Carpenter, which catches the light during the day and illuminates the building at night. The expressed structural elements of the building are clad in Viscount White stone, carefully chosen for the project.
“Our project is a response to the site within Hudson Yards, but its geometry also respects the wider context of New York’s street grid. The innovative elevator strategy and unique space planning provides prime users of the tower with their own lobbies, exclusive access, and separate identities. Column-free floor plates and generous ceiling heights provide high quality workspaces with maximum flexibility for change in the future. A purpose-built tunnel connects the building directly to the subway, while the lobby floors are connected by a delicate feature stair from which one can enjoy both views of Hudson Yards and the large-scale work of art by Frank Stella,” says Norman Foster, founder, and executive chairman of Foster + Partners.
Responses