THE RACE TO the skies in Manhattan has seen some impressive towering architecture over the last decade.
That trend is being challenged by something else – a design that would be the world’s longest building. Ohio-based design studio OI IO came up with what they call The Big Bend.
The design sees two narrow residential towers rise on New York’s 57th Street and arches in mid air to form an eye-catching loop and the world’s longest building.
The studio suggests that to make a building stand out, it “has to literally stand out”.
“We have become familiar with building height measurements. We usually learn about the latest tallest building and we are always impressed by its price per square foot. It seems that a property’s height operates as a license for it to be expensive.
“New York city’s zoning laws have created a peculiar set of tricks through which developers try to maximise their property’s height in order to infuse it with the prestige of a high rise structure. But what if we substituted height with length? What if our buildings were long instead of tall?”
They say that the building would become a prestige development in its own right.
“If we manage to bend our structure instead of bending the zoning rules of New York we would be able to create one of the most prestigious buildings in Manhattan. The longest building in the world.
“The Big Bend can become a modest architectural solution to the height limitations of Manhattan. We can now provide our structures with the measurements that will make them stand out without worrying about the limits of the sky.”
The renderings of the building are bizarre, and some, like the one showing a suited man amid piles of cash, speak to the satirical nature of the design.
Even if the design is not realised, it is unique.
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