Image Credit : Pavel Bendov
Project Overview
Two Bryant Park has undergone a complete transformation to become a premier office building for the workforce of the future. The building has received multiple additive renovations since its inception as an E-shaped six-story steel-framed masonry building in 1906. Acquiring nine more floors in 1926 and reaching its current 17-story height in 1984, when it transformed into the HBO building, the eponymous iteration featured a dark green curtain wall with highly reflective glass and distinctive white mullions. With a change of the major tenant coming in 2022, ownership once again faced the opportunity for re-imagination. Although razing the existing structure to build new was considered, zoning drove the decision to renovate. With the overbuilt Grace Building sharing the site, to rebuild would have meant to correct the FAR, resulting in a loss of rentable area. Therefore, the building would undergo another metamorphosis to become its most modern iteration yet. With a new high-performance curtain wall, a double-height public lobby and plaza, and a landscaped roof terrace, the repositioning of Two Bryant Park truly transforms the building with respect to energy performance, tenant experience, and urban engagement.
Project Commissioner
Brookfield Properties / The Swig Company
Project Creator
Team
Stone Contractor:
Wilkstone
William Torres
Structural Engineer:
GMS (Gilsanz Murray Steficek)
Phil Murray / Joe Mugford
Construction Management:
AECOM Tishman
Yogesh Chandrasekeran
Stone Quarry:
Euromarble
Roberto Canali
Project Brief
The most important aspect of the building has always been its location. Positioned at the corner of 42nd Street & Sixth Avenue, it sits at a crucial intersection in the city—directly between Bryant Park and publicly owned private space (POPS) Grace Plaza. However, the 1984 configuration cut the two public areas off from one another and had a small, poorly positioned lobby. From the project’s inception, a primary goal was to reposition the lobby to connect these two green spaces and provide a new urban experience. By removing the central column bay and floor slabs from the first and second floors, a double-height lobby concourse was carved out of the existing structure to link the two parks and pull pedestrians from one space to the other. The voluminous quality of this throughway counterbalances the relatively low slab-to-slab heights inherent in the building’s original construction. The resulting 25 by 25 foot glass entry portals bring an abundance of natural light into the double-height ground floor spaces and anchor the adjacent retail storefronts. To the north of the lobby, Grace Plaza has undergone a complete transformation with new paving, planting, seating, and lighting. This reinvigorated civic space will act as a place of respite for the neighborhood and will stimulate engagement with the adjacent retail. The elegant storefront design, with slim profile frames and oversized panels of glass, modernizes the base of the building and establishes an urban street presence that was missing from previous iterations.
Project Innovation/Need
Within the lobby, disparate textures of rugged stone and highly reflective finishes were chosen to distort and complement the natural landscapes on either side. Thassos marble was applied in two innovative finishes. The lobby entrances are flanked by white brushed Thassos marble that flows into a luminous white ceiling surface. These large glistening slabs bring in the soft light that filters through the trees outside. To achieve this diffuse quality, a leather finish was applied that enhanced the inherent glittering of the marble while concealing discoloration and other imperfections. Adjacent, framed by contrasting dark metallic portals, the cleft Thassos marble feature wall stands as the centerpiece of the lobby. The splitting process had never been done with Thassos marble before and required extensive research and experimentation. Ultimately, a precisely calibrated amount of pressure was applied by a splitting machine to cleft the stone along its natural fault lines. Specially applied in Carrara, Italy, it is an achievement of cutting-edge building technology working in concert with nature; the uncontrollable outcome of the stone splitting process was embraced, allowing the finish to flow from the natural properties of each individual slab. Each slab was then carefully selected and placed in relation to the others and the edges were hand chiseled to maintain consistency between panels. The resulting feature wall is a quarry in microcosm, embodying the tension between mechanical precision and natural chaos.
Design Challenge
The most challenging aspect of the project was the restrictive floor-to-ceiling heights and structural limitations that were inherited from the original 1906 masonry construction. In order to offset the low slab-to-slab proportions, a double-height lobby concourse was envisioned. This was achieved by removing the central column bay and floor slabs from the first and second floors and reinforcing the surrounding columns, which required innovative engineering and precise construction. On the upper floors where the new unitized curtain wall would be installed, the viability and location of the century-old structure were inconsistent. Therefore, new steel needed to be added at the perimeter of the building to accept the new curtain wall anchors. However, due to zoning constraints, the new face of the building could not project more than four inches past the property line, requiring careful engineering of the slab extension and anchors to fit within that gap. The existing slab-to-slab heights were also inconsistent, so the unitized curtain wall had to be carefully calibrated with the fabricator and installer to accommodate slight variations. The resulting curtain wall disguises these challenges with a consistent appearance of sleek, ultra-flat glass that expertly reflects the many buildings surrounding it.
Sustainability
The most sustainable way to construct a building is by reusing what has already been built. By keeping the existing foundations, slabs, beams, and columns, much of the embodied energy that was used to construct the original building is preserved. However, by upgrading the façade and mechanical systems, the operational carbon footprint of the building can be much improved. The new unitized curtain wall system minimizes thermal bridging and allows for clear glass and greater light transmittance with less solar gain. This greatly improves energy performance and comfort for tenants, as well as increases vision area, resulting in better interior views. Working in concert with the upgraded building envelope, a new direct outside air system (DOAS) provides flexible and efficient heating and cooling operations. Full energy modeling of the building passed easily, allowing it to meet the carbon emission limit required by the Climate Mobilization Act (Local Law 97) and achieve LEED Gold certification. By opting to re-clad rather than building new, the wastage of energy cost, operational disruptions, and embodied energy that comes with demolition was saved while providing the qualities of a new building that attracts modern tenants.
Architecture - Commercial - Constructed
This award celebrates the design process and product of planning, designing and constructing form, space and ambience that reflect functional, technical, social, and aesthetic considerations. Consideration given for material selection, technology, light and shadow.
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