Project Description
2011 RADA
Multifamily / Grand
One Madison Park won our judges’ approval for its sheer audacity as well as for its outright sheerness. “This one wins on proportion and elegance,” one judge said. “It’s pretty damn amazing.”
Overlooking Madison Square Park on Manhattan’s East Side, the 50-story tower rises 618 feet and is clad in dark bronze glass. The architects used a modular, plug-in design concept that is expressed through six-story glass pods that essentially hang off the building’s main shaft, giving residents a 270-degree view of the city. The pods, the architects say, “deconstruct the building’s mass and give it a sense of lightness.”
Apartments feature floor-to-ceiling glass, with windows in almost every kitchen and bathroom. The design team at CetraRuddy located lateral bracing between rooms and shafts (instead of around the perimeter) to minimize impact on the layouts in the loftlike units. Additionally, because the building is so tall and thin, the architects used rooftop dampers to stabilize the towers in the event of strong winds.
The project offers a mix of unit types as well as all the amenities of a luxury building, including a spa, outdoor terrace, fitness room, wine cellar, multipurpose room, and two pools. Another judge summed up the results with architectlike austerity: “They did a nice job.”