40 Tenth Ave

40 Tenth Avenue demonstrates how contemporary commercial buildings can be good neighbors and enhance dense urban conditions through meaningful consideration of their users and context. This mid-rise tower’s striking form, created by using solar angles to “carve” the allowable building envelope, was designed to benefit occupants and users of the adjacent High Line park by maximizing natural daylight, fresh air, and views for all. Revealing the architectural potential of a people-centered, analytical approach, 40 Tenth Avenue also offers a model for how inherited zoning codes can be updated to enable new buildings to improve dense neighborhoods and protect public space. New York City’s 1916 Zoning Resolution was the first of its kind when it was enacted to preserve the public’s right to sunshine and fresh air without explicitly limiting the height of the high-rise. To this day the city’s regulations require setbacks that typically produce stepped towers. The 40 Tenth Avenue site, however, defies the logic of this zoning. Located at the western edge of Lower Manhattan, between the Hudson River and the High Line, the critical public space the building should protect is not the unobstructed western street but this unusual inner-block park. Rather than accept the as-of-right zoning envelope, which would have put park users in shadow and cut off their views of the Hudson, the project received a setback waiver to support a design that amplifies the experience of the heavily used High Line To address the building’s unique site condition, which is adjacent to a public park at the center of a block that would not be protected by current zoning codes, the building’s mass is stacked toward the western edge, opening up space for a terrace on the eastern edge facing the park. This produces a building with narrow floorplates that offer 270-degree views and will be flooded with natural light. The southeast and northwest corners of the building are “carved away” according to the incident angles of the sun’s rays to maximize sunlight, fresh air, and river views for the park, while also allowing for private terraces on many of the office levels that are angled to provide views down to the park and up to the sky. Targeting LEED Gold, the tower features high-performance glass with very low reflectivity to allow clear, unobstructed views to and from the river and park. The glazing system is geometrically optimized into a pattern of three-dimensional facets that articulate the carved regions of the tower. Each facet consists of five panels which were fabricated and assembled off-site and shipped and installed as one unit. At the center of each facet, a large diamond-shaped panel tilts downward to dramatically capture direct overhead light for corner workspaces. The 145,474 sf and 199 ft tall, 12-story building features 27,000 sf of retail on the ground and first floor. These retail spaces open to the street and the High Line, connecting the building with the public activity of both. The office floors above, which feature an average area of 11,000 sf and generous floor-to-floor heights of 16 ft, consist of full-floor office interiors, with flexible floorplates easily reconfigured for different tenant types and uses. The building additionally supports 20,000 sf of outdoor space across eight different floors. This includes a 10,000-sf shared outdoor roof deck and an expansive 8,000-sf terrace on the second floor, both of which offer tenants a place to enjoy sun, fresh air, and sweeping views.