Why New York is Building on TOP of its Skyscrapers

New York is full so full that it's now building on top of its existing highrises to create more space this is one Wall Street one of the city's oldest skyscrapers it used to be an office building but now been converted into apartments in doing so six additional floors have been added on top adding new floors to a building is clearly not a simple task let alone doing it on top of a skyscraper in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world the average concrete slab in a New York building is 8 in thick and weighs thousands of pounds adding new floors means adding a lot more weight to a structure that it was not designed to cope with if it's done wrong it could crush the floors below this is the story of how Engineers overcame immense challenges to bring one Wall Street into the 2020s it's how New York built on top of an historic skyscraper it's taken 8 years of construction to convert this Art Deco Skyscraper from offices to Apartments it's the largest building in New York City to undergo this type of adaptive reuse while the exteriors remained mostly the same the inside of the building has been nearly completely gutted a total of 566 homes now occupy one Wall Street hundreds of new Landmark approved windows were added the building's mechanical areas as well as 30 of its elevators had to be moved from the perimeter to the core and of course six additional floors were added to the top in a way that wouldn't cross the floors underneath there were a lot of challenges you know we're Engineers we're Tinkers things we like to work on this had a lot of those um and yeah it was a challenge but it was uh nothing insurmountable my name is Mark plotti I'm a structional engineer or involvement started 2014 so it's been almost a uh or essentially a decade's worth of work on the building so why did this have to happen why did this building have to be gutted and transformed well the nature of our cities is changing one Wall Street occupies a full City Block Bound by Broadway Wall Streets New Street and Exchange Place it's right in the middle of the financial district the beating capitalist heart of this city it's where the stock exchang is the federal bank and one World Trade Center it's here in this District where legacies are made and lost within a matter of months Only The Savvy survive diversifying their Holdings in case of emergency but their most valuable assets aren't locked away in a vaults they're hanging from the walls since the 18th century banks have collected million dooll paintings to reflect their expertise and protect bottom lines Arts demonstrated price appreciation that's outperformed more traditional assets a strategy billionaires have used to create generational wealth today's video sponsors Masterworks have sold over $54 Million worth of arts and distributed the profits to tens of thousands of investors some of whom didn't actually know much about art over 900,000 users have signed up so far and with offerings from Legends like baskia Picasso and Banky shares of some paintings have sold out within minutes many of the B&M subscribers have already signed up but you can still skip the wait list and start investing today by going to the QR code on screen or by visiting masterworks.io now let's get back to New York's Financial District a neighborhood that's seen rapid change in recent years demand for office space has dwindled and demand for housing has Skyrocket it people are looking at these towering Office Buildings and wondering if they could be put to better use if people could actually live in them but the thing is Office Buildings aren't designed to be lived in and converting them into Apartments isn't easy offices tend to have large floor plates that don't divide into Apartments very easily they to have their plumbing electricals and elevators in the wrong place and they don't allow for enough natural lights to reach the very center of the floor plate I know that there's some projects going on and they are actually taking one of these and cutting out a core like an Atrium so you can actually get the light and air that you need I am the um director of architecture and in design at mlo properties practiced as an architect for two decades before before I joined Mao properties one Wall Street is among the city's earliest skyscrapers it was built at the beginning of the 20th century and designed by architect Ralph Walker the original uh building that was completed in 1931 it's such an iconic um and significant building in New York City the original tower was landmarked by New York City in 1980s 1990s something like that so once it becomes landmarked you cannot touch the exterior this building is a prime examp Le of the art deco movement that dominated Manhattan's Skyline in the 1920s and 30s and that's why it was given Landmark status it has a limestone facade that Ralph Walker actually called was a drapery or curtain wall and the undulating facade is absolutely gorgeous in sunlight even if there was an opportunity if it weren't landmarked we certainly would not have um taken it down so there that was one reason but the second was it would be very complicated we have the uh Subway below us um that that if we were to demolish something and you know um structurally I think it would be even more complicated to to build a new tower while knocking the building down would of course have been complicated there was nothing simple about retrofitting this enormous block of offices 30 elevators had to be demolished then new ones rebuilt in the center of the floor plan mechanical rooms which had faced the New York Stock Exchange or also had to be moved the office um demand for elevators is much different than residential because you've got those Rush Hour points of the day we have 10 elevators for the residential Apartments down from the 30 and the we put them all centralized into a core same thing with the staircases so that it was made it much better for efficient layouts and as well as um ability to have light and air as well the decision was also taken to add six additional floors to house more apartments and take advantage of the spectacular views from the top of this structure those levels were added to the annex a 30-story section of the building that was constructed in the 1960s now one of the benefits of adding flaw to this part of the structure rather than the very tip of the skyscraper is that the annex is incredibly sturdy so the the original design uh was an office building with a heavier than required design load so it was designed for much heavier use than office originally the weight requirement for residential is significantly lower than it is for office so on the existing building that was 30 stories we took advantage at each floor of that reduction it adds up significantly where you can take advantage of it um we still had to strengthen the the upper floors to receive the added weight even with the sturdiness of the building below they still needed to reduce the weight of the additional floors to do this they used voided slabs these slabs were filled with plastic cylinders before a finishing layer of concrete was put on top and we made the added weight at the top less by using these plastic bubbles inside the slabs so we did what is what looked on a finished product like a typical standard flat concrete floor plate but in fact has inside it uh plastic bubbles inserted at strategic locations to reduce the weight further they did leave some areas as solid concre especially where structural columns came through the floors but most of the slab was built using this technique the process reduced the overall weight of the floors by about a third it was also far easier to construct than if they'd used steel beams you would have had to install a tower crane which is extremely expensive or You' have to dismantle the steel into smaller pieces bring it up by elevator reassemble it the concrete itself can be pumped the rebar can be brought to the elevator very easily and the plastic bubbles are are very lightweight so everything was brought up through the uh construction hoists and then installed at the top an incredible amount of effort has gone into retaining the art Deco aesthetic throughout the rest of the building the Red Room is a glittering reception area that features floor to ceiling mosaics designed by a famous art deco artist it's been closed off for nearly two decades but now it's been lovingly restored the developer spent over $1 million um restoring the the mosaics it's 33 ft tall and the mosaics were clean with non-abrasive uh Solutions you can imagine that from 1931 to you know 2019 that's not nearly 100 years worth of um whether a cigarette smoke or what it would be on these mosaics but it was carefully restored one W Street has now completed and welcomed the first of its new residents but is it a symbol for the future of New York As Cities change our buildings have to change and adapt with them perhaps nothing is more emblematic of the current state of the city than one of New York's ancient Financial skyscrapers turning into Apartments we might be seeing many more of these iconic buildings changing or gaining flaws in the future this video was sponsored by Masterworks you can skip their wait list at the link below don't forget that we're inspiring the next generation of Builders through our investment into brick borrow you can learn more and get started today over at Brick bor.com and as always guys if you enjoyed this video and you want to get more from the definitive video channel for construction make sure you subscribe to the [Music] b1m but

Channel: The B1M

Views: 719,105

Keywords: B1M, TheB1M, Construction, architecture, engineering, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, One Wall Street, New York, art deco, structural engineer, Broadway, Stock Exchange, Macklowe Properties, Ralph Walker, renovation, skyscraper, adaptive reuse, empty skyscrapers, office to apartments, United States, New York City, 1 Wall Street, 1 wall st

Id: Q2awgg1bBXo

Length: 11min 0sec (660 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 10 2024