Abstract:
All things come to an end. As our cities age, underutilized and outdated skyscrapers are entering
their last stages of life. In spite of the enormous material, labor, and economic investment in
these structures, the decision to demolish them and begin again from the ground up has become
increasingly common in the past decade. Demolition not only chips away at the character of
place, but it also destroys the material, time, and monetary investment that makes up a structure.
This thesis investigates methods of reinvesting the embodied carbon of these towers as they
transition into the modern era, standing as an alternative to razing and beginning anew.
Immortal Skyscrapers tests this principle of adaptation and reuse by applying them to the 270
Park Avenue tower, currently the tallest voluntarily demolished building in the world. The
project embraces the necessary changes to the tower, namely expanded usable floor space and
updated systems, while building upon the building’s existing structural core. The reimagined 270
Park Avenue expands programming to connect to the rich cultural landscape it occupies while
also connecting to the environmental context through mechanical screening arrays. While the
program, facade, and systems might all change through time, the heart of our urban
megastructures must endure to break the waste cycle that dominates architecture.
