Architect and designer Neri Oxman and her husband, the hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, have been told to modify plans drawn up by Norman Foster for a glass penthouse on a 1920s building in New York.
Oxman and Ackman want to demolish the existing one-storey, pink stucco penthouse on the roof of the Upper West Side block and replace it with a two-storey modernist structure.
The glass-and-steel, stacked-box design was produced for the couple by British architect Foster, founder of the UK's largest architecture firm Foster + Partners.
The proposed penthouse would overlook Central Park
After three hours of discussion at a meeting last month, in which Oxman, Ackman and Foster all participated, New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) asked for the height of the proposed new penthouse to be reduced. Concluding the hearing, LPC chair Sarah Carroll said the proposed penthouse's "materials and design do not detract from the building below by virtue of its simplistic and carefully designed nature" but noted concerns about its visibility.
"I would suggest that we take no action today and ask the applicants to continue to study this project," she said.
"I think we have a lot of support and I think you're in the right direction and this is just a matter of continuing that process, thinking about how you can really fulfil the design intent [...] of this glass house on the roof by sinking it down, lowering it, maintaining a more sort of horizontal qu...