A very high-end residential tower block at 56 Leonard Street in New York’s Tribeca (Triangle below canal) district in Lower Manhattan. The 250 metre, 60 storey structure comprises ten penthouses and one hundred and thirty five condominiums and is known locally as the Jenga Tower, for obvious reasons. It goes without saying that the building is in a vastly different league to a precarious Jenga stack.
Construction of the building was possible because of a New York City planning provision known as air rights and which have traded as a tangible financial asset since the 1970s.
The architectural nature of the building is such that the occupants of each and every residential unit do not have a sense of their immediate neighbours.
The interior decor of the apartments is based on an all-white palette with white stained Appalachian white oak floors, white walls and concrete ceilings clad in Kydex (thermoplastic acrylic-polyvinyl chloride) also painted white.
The developer is Izak Senbahar of Alexico Development Group LLC and property sales have been reported at in excess of US$1.27 billion. He was born in Istanbul, Turkey and he is an entrepreneur, hotelier and real estate developer.
Pierre de Meuron Jacques Herzog
The architectural practice Herzog & de Meuron delivered the innovative design. The partnership was established in Basel, Switzerland in 1978 by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.
The project was recognized by the ACEC (American Council of Engineering Companies) with the 2017 Engineering Excellence National Recognition Award in April 2017 and in September 2017, 56 Leonard was recognized by the Engineering News-Record as the 2017 Best Project in the Residential / Hospitality category.
