New York, New York, USA
Named the Atmospheric Veil, Re-a.d’s new project proposes a solution to aging buildings, while also making this particular 675,986 square foot office building located at 63 Madison Avenue in New York attractive and suitable for modern-day living, by turning the outdoor spaces into socializing, dining and working spaces, which is particularly fitting as we imagine the world post-Covid, when many of us will be returning to office work.
The project explores the space between the technical layers of a performance skin.
In response to the brief, Re-a.d aimed at creating a sustainable way to bring life and vibrance within the existing façade of a historic New York office tower.
The project reinterprets the facade of the office building to considerably improve the internal efficiency of the offices, open up the facade to the street, and enhance the work conditions through the creation of semi-outdoor spaces within the building plateau.
The idea is to enable people to reconnect and breathe fresh air during their workday in this typical midtown corner.
The design purposefully limits waste generation by conserving most of the existing structure and introducing new technology Etfe inflated air membranes, resulting in a low carbon footprint for this building upgrade and a rapid offsetting thanks to extensive energy saving in daily operation.
Midtown Avenues are subject to many extremes: canyon effects make them freeze in the winter whereas urban heat effect turns them into an oven almost any day of the summer.
Both weather conditions result in extreme energy consumption for many buildings.
The location of midtown is also extreme for by-passers and workers.
All year long, sirens, car horns, and low vegetation index add to increased stress levels.
The proposal aims at buffering these extremes, for humans and for the environment.
The architects upscaled the concept of the double-skin facade to the entire volume, creating a vegetated interface atmosphere.
The new “in-between” space favors social interaction, offers a retreat from the over-stimulation on the street, and prevents the building envelope from extreme weather solicitations.
Emerging amidst the commercial buildings of the nomad, 63 Madison Avenue is imposing and evidently distinctive.
The first thing one would notice approaching the edifice is the new building’s colossal brute concrete facade and piers.
Re-a.d’s design exists within the space between the current building envelope and newly offset volumes carved out of the current slab.
Project: Atmospheric Veil
Architects: Re-a.d Architecture Design DPC.
