56 Leonard Street - 57-story tower - by Herzog & de Meuron

**infoshare** · April 4th, 2016, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by Merry

Very disappointing after the excitement of the original rendering. Those windows are craptacular!

Even in this rather spiffy video from a few years ago (sorry if it's been posted before), they don't look good. Seems to be a deliberate visual effect. (Bean squishing is cool, though

.)

That video was a blast to watch again: a blast from the past I had completely forgotten about.... I am not as disappointed with the rectangular window frame detail as I am with the 'subtle-to-non-existent' concave curve on the exposed concrete floor slabs. The beginning of the video depicts the exposed floor slabs as having deep, smooth and a very noticeable affect on the overall design - not the case when viewing this building in person.

The marketers for this project oversold and under delivered on the aesthetics and general visual appeal - but I still find this building to be a marvel to behold, destined to be an architectural icon despite a few wrinkles which I think will wear well with time...

**IrishInNYC** · April 6th, 2016, 10:24 AM

The concave edge reveals are exactly as the video represented in terms of size and scale. Trying to hold the finished product - seen from the street in who knows what weather and light - to the standard of a CGI created environment is a bit naive.

The construction of those 'simple' reveals added immense engineering and constructability factors to this building and I have no doubt they passed under several budgetary carving knives unscathed; a miracle in this age of cost-cutting.

The windows are also fairly representative of what is shown in the promo images and video. They're not at all the bait and switch we often get in designs like this. The architect's concept was realized in terms of the houses or favela in the sky idea. Period. The building should already be added to the architectural tours of the city.

**scumonkey** · April 6th, 2016, 03:35 PM

fairly representative

yes they were shown in the promo images, but in reality the altered colour of the frames they used (much lighter and more obvious than the dark ones rendered),
makes them stand out way more, cheapening the overall look of the entire building.

**infoshare** · April 6th, 2016, 04:42 PM

Originally Posted by IrishInNYC

The concave edge reveals are exactly as the video represented in terms of size and scale. Trying to hold the finished product - seen from the street in who knows what weather and light - to the standard of a CGI created environment is a bit naive.

The thing is that those 'concave edge reveals' have turned out to be so subtle a feature as to be barely noticeable, they do not have enough visual 'pop' that I believe the designers intended them to have: again, hardly noticeable and so end up looking like the VE exposed concrete floor slabs we typically see on more standard, low budget buildings.

I like the design of the building, but some take issue with the window frames; where I am a bit more disappointed with the look of those 'concave edges'. If those reveals looked anything remotely close to what we see in the renderings, that would be well worth the added time/expense: this detail just fell far short of the visual impact they were intended to have on the viewing public.

**TREPYE** · April 9th, 2016, 09:17 AM

Originally Posted by kz1000ps

Welp, a good old black and white filter seems to help things

I kinda like the effect those windows have; it gives a very textured building some extra depth when they are opened. Think some of Nouvel's Vision Machine effect being sprinkled in.....