This building is so ugly, there’s good ways to do cantilevers and glass facades and not good ways but I wasn’t expecting much from Peter Poon. Their recent work isn’t that pretty, the nicest is probably 132 W 28th St.
Ugh. 
dang, looks like no vertical progress in nearly 3mo
7 Likes
5 Likes
For a minute or two I thought the Refinery Hotel was adding another roof bar to their property. Great vantage point of the Empire State Building if anybody is in the neighborhood btw.
8 Likes
I guess it’s better when they’re set back. Then you can’t see them as well.
This ‘set-back’ approach is clearly some sort of program strategy when designing these small mid block hotels. My guess is: smaller footprint, permits a taller building within the given FAR requirements - then use the open area in the front as ‘usable’ space.
Something like that to maximize the usable square footage given the FAR zoning requirements. There is clearly very little concern for the aesthetics; so the set-back, and out-of-sight is just as well… 
The application of just about every single new high rise hotel in the city in being set back from the property line/street wall is due to the distance ratio of the core to the edge of the units.
There is not much program that can be housed in the space between the core and the street wall, so the massing is just setback from ground level to conform to the depth of the units. This also creates a small space for valet and guest to not be in the way of the sidewalk and has also been used to house outdoor seating for restaurants.
1 Like
I want to note that we haven’t seen progress on this project in almost a year because it is under a work stop order due to DOB, OATH, and ECB violations for the zoning and construction code, but it generally seems like the properties/project has had several violations over it’s history.
But over that period, a new permit was approved in January from a new application that was filed in late 2018 and a change of AOR has occurred from Peter Poon Architects to Marin Architects, so we can expect something a bit less jarring and more elegant. The building also got several feet taller to 480’ and 36 floors. Marin Architects has not released any new renders but we can just assume it will be better than the oddly shaped building that was previously planned. It is still under ownership of H Hotels though.
5 Likes
2 Likes
This will have “some” presence in the area. Just very happy to see it finally moving forward and with a different design at that.
12 Likes
Still dont care for it, but it looks so much better than the weird Peter Poon previous iteration…
9 Likes
omg cringe -
2 Likes
Cantilevering is going nuts.
2 Likes