Five Manhattan West: Architectural Feat in Renovation and Preservation

Five Manhattan West today/ photo credit: Laurian Ghinitoiu

NEW YORK CITY—Brookfield Property Partners took on the dark, heavy, cement-themed, Brutalist building, originally constructed in 1969, at 450 West 33rd St., invested $350 million in a redesign, and brought it into the 21st century. With changes to its physical body as well as a facelift, Brookfield renamed its shiny, newly refashioned building, Five Manhattan West.

Originally designed by the architect firm Davis Brody (now Davis Brody Bond), over the decades the building suffered from architectural drift. In the 1980s, painting the external structure beige, and adding brown metal siding did the building no aesthetic favors.

Five Manhattan West vintage photo/ courtesy of REX architects

Brookfield hired REX architects in 2011, with construction beginning in 2014. On Wednesday during a Five Manhattan West tour, REX’s founding principal and president, Joshua Prince-Ramus, noted during the building’s architectural nadir, it was often called “the elephant’s foot” or the “Tyrell Building,” in reference to the headquarters from the movie “Blade Runner.”

Instead of demolishing the building, it became a once in a lifetime architectural opportunity for adaptive reuse of a massive urban structure. Today, the 16-story building features 1.8 million square feet of space. REX renovated the building, preserving and reusing its concrete columns, with a wink to its original postmodern slanted frame. Now, its signature pleated windows create a slope-like facade of undulating curves.

However, Prince-Ramus pointed out this was not just a design conceit. The vertical zigzag windows maximize natural light, improve energy performance, and facilitate cleaning.

Cascading windows at Five Manhattan West/ photo credit: Laurian Ghinitoiu

The cascading windows, with a pop-up modification to the original slant, comply with the American with Disabilities Act and building codes. These requirements were contemplated years after the building’s original opening and 1980s makeover.

Buildings now require a minimum height to prevent injuries. Those with visual impairments and using canes could otherwise bump their heads into ceilings or walls, slanting from above, as designed in the original structure.

Although the devil is often in such details, REX’s main design drivers were threefold. “First, the existing building had a difficult geometry. Second, part of redesigning the building required us to improve the energy performance of the building,” said Prince-Ramus. “The third was the structure was going to remain occupied during construction.”