Dezeen Magazine

The Eleventh by BIG

BIG releases new image of twisted residential towers in New York

Danish firm BIG has unveiled a new rendering of its pair of rotated towers that are currently under construction in New York's Chelsea neighbourhood.

The image provides an updated overview of BIG's The Eleventh development, which is being built alongside the city's High Line elevated park.

The Eleventh by BIG
BIG first released concept renderings of The Eleventh in 2016

Reaching different heights, the two bronze- and travertine-clad towers are designed with twisted shapes formed by a series of slanted walls. They appear to lean towards one another in the new rendering, which shows what the structures will look like from across the nearby Hudson River.

Both buildings are detailed with gridded windows that are staggered to follow the slope of the walls, with a second smaller volume protruding from the top.

Latest twisted buildings by BIG

This is not the first time that the architecture firm, led by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, has experimented with twisted designs. BIG has also built pair of residential towers in Miami, featuring overhanging floor plates that warp its shape, and designed a skyscraper in Vancouver with cutaways at the base.

Designed for developers HFZ Capital Group, The Eleventh towers will rise from a low-level building that wraps a courtyard on the ground level. This will offer a link between the two with another provided by a sky bridge much higher up.

A total of 236 residences will be included in development: the West Tower will host 149, while the remainder will located in the East Tower, along with a luxury 137-room hotel by the Six Senses spa resort brand.

BIG joins other starchitects in Chelsea

First unveiled in 2016, BIG's scheme is located at 76 11th Avenue, and is joining a host of developments in the Chelsea area by well-known architects, including Zaha HadidRenzo Piano and Jean Nouvel. An office building by Frank Gehry also sits just to the north, and is visible in the rendering of The Eleventh.

The Eleventh
The two twisting towers are currently under construction along New York's High Line

After establishing BIG in Copenhagen in 2005, Ingels set up a second studio in New York five years later.

The firm – which came fourth in the 2017 Dezeen Hot List of the world's most newsworthy forces in design – now has a number of projects in the pipeline across the city. These include the 65-storey office tower The Spiral for the Hudson Yards development and the long-delayed Two World Trade Center skyscraper.

BIG's VIA 57 West "courtscraper" next to the New York's West Side Highway completed in 2016.