Big photo dump, enjoy
Almost there, cladding on the east side only has one more panel in height left before reaching the top.
Work on Madison Ave side.
Updates to 47th St side/roadway reconstruction, you can sort of imagine the corner curb cut on the last photo from the bollards.
48th St side/miscellaneous
Been almost 3 months since I’ve been able to take a progress photo from my “typical” normal update vantage point.
Completed the top cladding around to the western facade today. It has been fun watching this one go up.
Source: Top of the Rock EarthCam
Confirmation that there will be no such “water wall” as was always speculated by so many. There was only ever confirmation for a water feature that consisted of the pools at the foot of the left and right sides of the Madison Ave entrance to the building.
I still fully believe that whatever was shown in renders or the large scale models was just large size rough hewn granite (or stone in general) panels. It was never ideal that walls of such size and verticality could function as water walls.
Foster describes the green walls as works by Maya Lin (starts to discuss the building in general at the 43min mark.) These green walls actually look like plants on stone, regardless, the attachments being fitted on the Madison Ave side at the moment, are definitely indicative of something heavy.
I can’t believe I’m seeing this almost complete work of art.
Great updates (here and in other threads)!
Yes that much water from that height would not work under wind conditions.
I hope the lighting inside the client floors will somehow match with the external lighting. Those floors do not have the external vertical strips of lighting, so it has to be done from inside
Yes I’m also wondering how they will get a uniform lighting scheme for the top two tiers.
It will not match exactly and the break between the mech floors caused by the conference floors will be noticeable but I am certain that upon close observation that lighting was fitted to the interior side via a mullion separate from the main support mullions to either sides.
I’ll try to find a photo that shows this once I’m home.
Here in this screengrab from @9MileProductions video you can see secondary mullions adjacent to the main mullions where I believe lighting is integrated into the panel on the interior side. It almost lines up with the light fixtures on the mechanical panels. Oddly though not all of the panels have the smaller mullions behind the inner black strips so I honestly don’t know what’s going on there.
However, much like we saw with the pilaster portions of cladding, we can see the lighting has already been built into the panels, visible as the dotted line/strip of LEDS near the joint line of the cladding panels on the mechanical panels.
In this screengrab you can see the LED wires sticking out, so on the panels that do have angled mullions hiding the led lights they have glass on the interior face (as visible here) to probably lessen the affect of having a visually wide mullion.
Ah gotcha! It probably won’t look as bad as I thought. I can’t wait to see wide angle shots of these taller floors
If only the lighting works. Given the number of lighting scheme failures lately it’s hard to be optimistic, despite the great architectural care that went into designing this building. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
I wouldn’t cast much doubt (or doubt at all really) that the lighting here wouldn’t be maintained regularly. Everyone is always talking about all the developments in the city with failing or unmaintained or no lighting at all when it was expected there would be but no one ever talks about the buildings that do upkeep their lighting, like One Vanderbilt and the ESB, this building will be no different in scale of lighting than those 2 buildings, there’s no reason to think that it won’t be upkept properly, especially since it is representative of JPMC.
I wouldn’t associate the architecture or the architect/firm with how the lighting ends up, because it isn’t their fault or responsibility in how the lighting turns out. That’s purely up to the developer/client, SLGreen cares about the lighting at One Vanderbilt so they upkeep it, ESD cares about the lighting at the ESB so they upkeep it, JPMC cared enough to continue through with putting the lights so they care about it. It should only be a matter of time until they are tested.
I only share that feeling because of Foster’s Comcast Technology Center. At night, the spine of the tower with the office and hotel floors are lit up with a soft yet present lighting. Then you get to the lantern from the roof level and above, and the lighting is noticable more powerful and bold
April 2020. And yes, that’s a heart made with the internal lighting in the hotel section