15 Hudson Yards

Built in 2015, 392 residences across 88 floors.

553 West 30th Street, 10001

15 Hudson Yards was designed by Diller Scofidio and Renfro with Rockwell Group. It rises 88 storeys from a limestone base cut on numerical control machines, and above that base the whole tower is glass. The curtain wall is cold warped, meaning flat panels are bent into the curve on installation rather than moulded to it, and it is the largest wall of its kind on the continent.

Cold warping is why the plan curves. The tower reads as four rounded lobes rather than as a rectangle with corners, and an apartment inside it meets its outside wall on a continuous arc.

That arc is the fact to design to. A curved perimeter takes no straight run of casework against it, so anything at the window wall is either built to the radius or pulled off it and set square to the room behind. Rugs and seating laid out to the geometry of the glass will not square with the internal walls, and a plan that ignores the curve ends up with wedges of dead space at either end of every run.

Within walking distance

Building facts

New York City Primary Land Use Tax Lot Output, version 26v1. Tax lot 1007027502.