One Manhattan West is a Class-A office tower in the Manhattan West development, a 7 million-square-foot neighborhood located where minimal buildable land existed. Residing on the development’s northeast corner at Ninth Avenue and 33rd Street, the building navigates the incredible complexity of active railroad tracks underground while forming a gateway into the site.
At 996 feet tall, the tower is the development’s largest and most recognizable building. It forms its gateway along Ninth Avenue with Two Manhattan West—now under construction—as a pair of LEED-Gold-targeting towers that gradually taper to accentuate the arrival experience. Both towers, clad in high performance glass, express a soft, elegant simplicity. One Manhattan West, with a curvature to the east, welcomes visitors arriving from 33rd Street.
An intricate synthesis of design and engineering made this project possible. With a limited amount of space available for the structure around the tracks, the building was designed with a central core that rises from bedrock to the top level. To reinforce the structure, perimeter columns slope in to the core above the ground level—enabling a dramatic, column-free lobby.
The lobby is a triple-height room enclosed in glass fins that appear to dissolve as the building meets the ground. It connects 33rd Street, Ninth Avenue, and the outdoor public space at Manhattan West to reactivate the 33rd Street corridor on the Far West Side of Manhattan—announcing the development’s civic identity.
Within the lobby, the core is surrounded by a rigid stone travertine, with horizontal, contiguous veining that appears carved from a singular, monolithic stone block. The travertine expresses the strength of the core inside, and in the westernmost ends of the space, wooden walls with horizontal striations complement the materiality of the travertine to enhance the lobby’s natural aesthetic.
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