Creating a new terminus for W68th Street, 170 Amsterdam sits between Central Park to the east and the landscaped open space of the Lincoln Towers superblock to the west. The[...]

漏 Courtesy of Handel Architects
Creating a new terminus for W68th Street, 170 Amsterdam sits between Central Park to the east and the landscaped open space of the Lincoln Towers superblock to the west. The building?s architecture and the exoskeleton that defines the exterior is derived from its location between these large green spaces and its immediate context. The intersections of the structure rise to the top of the building at different heights, giving the appearance of a fa莽ade in motion while also allowing for the prefabricated fiberglass formwork to be reused with the concrete cycle. Moving the structure to the outside of the enclosure freed up valuable interior space that would have been occupied by columns and the projecting slabs and columns provide a veil over the all glass fa莽ade and act as a shading device. The deep fa莽ade of the diagrid connects with the muscular buildings of lower Amsterdam Avenue, Lincoln Center, the Upper West Side and iconic Chicago architecture. At ground level, the columns create a dynamic street wall, with the exposed structure angling into the sidewalk and piercing the solid form of the building canopy. At the top, the building?s volume ends while the skeleton continues, creating a structural canopy for the rooftop spaces. Inside, the exposed concrete colum...