The limits to how tall and thin towers can be has more to do with markets than engineers.

Extell

Within the next few years, the number of New York City skyscrapers that are 1,000 feet or taller is going to soar. Today, there are seven towers in the 1,000-feet-plus club. If construction proceeds as planned on projects now under way or scheduled to break ground this year, that figure will more than double. 

In Manhattan, architects are building highest and fastest in Midtown. There, the supertalls aren't just tall—some of them are superskinny, too. A group of buildings along West 57th Street with residential units priced from $5 million to more than $100 million has transformed the Central Park perch into Billionaires Row, a signifier of America's new Gilded Age. In most cases, each unit is basically its own penthouse suite, occupying an entire floor of its building.

Taken on their own terms, the superskinnies represent a feat of architectural design. The new developments going up on West 57th Street may, in fact, be approaching the outer limits of the tall-to-thin aspect ratio for a structure. Just not for the reasons you might think.

"Structurally, there are a lot of very unique challenges, especially for a building that wants a high degree of special views," says Vishaan Chakrabarti, a partner at SHoP Architects and the director of the Center for Urban Real Estate at Columbia University. SHoP—the firm that designed the Barclays Center as well the forthcoming Domino Sugar Refinery development, both in Brooklyn— is responsible for what may be New York's, and the world's, skinniest supertall....Continue Reading

> via citylab.com