Above the Curve: This Sectional Model Gives a Glimpse of Renzo Piano’s Next New York Project M e i k G g f383 Comment Paul Keskeys

Following the completion last year of his most significant New York project to date — the Whitney Museum of American Art — Renzo Piano is wasting no time in returning to the Big Apple. The Italian architect’s firm has revealed images of a proposed skyscraper entitled the Soho Tower, a luxury residential building set to rise on a vacant site between Broome and Watts streets in the heart of Manhattan.

The 25-story tower is being developed through a partnership between real-estate firms SHVO, Halpern Real Estate Ventures, Itzhaki Acquisition and Bizzi and Partners Development. Together with renderings of the proposal, Piano released images of a meticulously detailed model revealing a key feature of the design: a curved glass façade that wraps around each corner of the building.

The sectional model shows how the building’s structural elements, a series of cylindrical columns, are pulled back from the building edge to allow for uninterrupted panels of floor-to-ceiling glazing. The result appears similar to Tadao Ando’s minimalist apartment block at 152 Elizabeth Street, on its way to completion only a short walk east of Piano’s proposed tower.

Comprising two towers connected by a common plinth, the building will contain 115 apartments, a fitness center and a swimming pool, along with shops at ground level. A rendering of the building’s upper reaches shows residents populating a roof terrace with panoramic views across SoHo, Downtown Manhattan and the Hudson River.