For many years, while the Middle and Far East were building like crazy, it was quieter on the Big Apple front. Not so today. If one thing has become crystal-clear during the current boom in New York City, it’s that developers have come around to understanding the value of good design. Developers are now turning to top local firms as well as superstars from abroad for buildings that are making singular contributions to the skyline.
Interior Design compiled a list of the power players changing the New York City landscape in PowerGrid 100 NYC. Scroll through to see 11 featured builds to watch this year.
DESIGN-BUILD PROJECTS BY DDG AND TAMARKIN
Being a designer is certainly challenging. Ditto for being a developer. But some firms manage to both design and to develop.
DDG sometimes goes even further, constructing and managing its properties as well. For 180 East 88th Street, at 50 stories soon to be the tallest apartment building on the Upper East Side, DDG is throwing some curves into the design. Arches will evoke both caves and cathedrals in the lobby, then reappear at the pinnacle of the facade, fronting penthouse terraces. While the handmade bricks for the exterior are imported from Denmark, and the oversize windows are Italian, the views are genuine New York.
Tamarkin Co.’s founder and president, trained architect Cary Tamarkin, usually draws inspiration from what’s down on street level—the tough, workaday buildings of the city. His designs rely on brick, concrete and factory-style gridded steel-framed windows as a way to fit in with the old industrial buildings in Chelsea and the West Village, where his projects tends to be. But that is not to say they’re cookie-cutter. With 550 West 29th Street, a 12-story apartment building currently under construction, he’s taken the factory-window concept to the nth degree.