Location: New York, NY
Client: The Trump Organization
Architect: Costas Kondylis & Partners, LLP
Photo Credit: Costas Kondylis & Partners, LLP

The $400 million, 880,000 SF building is the tallest residential tower in the world. When built it was the most slender high-rise building in the world. Located between 47th and 48th Streets and First Avenue. The new seventy-story tower rises 860 ft. above street level with two underground levels.

The challenging building utilizes an all-concrete structural system. The tower footprint is rectangular with a 77 ft. by 144 ft. dimension and a slenderness ratio of 11:1 which, in combination with its height, defines its principal engineering challenge. This challenge is met by approaching different fronts such as optimal structural design, new technology, construction and logistics and pioneering new concept and technology in the design and construction of tall buildings in NYC.

Even though the tower is all residential, it has four different floor plans stacked on top of each other with different requirements for clear spans and column locations requiring transfer systems primarily at the 22nd mechanical floor. The number of transfer systems are reduced to a minimum by arriving at optimum column locations to meet the needs of various floor layouts, achieved through extensive coordination among team members.

For the first time, high strength concrete of 12000-psi strength was used in New York City.

The building’s lateral load resisting system is comprised of a central shear wall system linked to a “beam-less” perimeter tube system. The proposed “beam-less” tube system is an evolutionary variation of the classical tube concept. The central shear wall system is made up of two pairs of parallel walls running East- West and North-South, shaping a giant H, acting as the spine of the tower. In order to further enhance the structural strength and stiffness of the main spine, the shear walls are linked to the perimeter columns via full height walls for vertical load transfer at two levels. The linkages are via a “Belt” System at the 22nd floor, which is the main mechanical floor, and a “Hat” System above the main roof level. Both the “Belt and Hat” Systems are comprised of a full height wall wrapping around the perimeter of the structure and engaging all the perimeter columns as part of the lateral force resisting system. A new metric rebar with 63mm diameter with 80,000 psi yield strength was proposed at the hammer zones. In the absence of any designation, we named the bar “#20 rebar” since the equivalent diameter fits the American numeric designation.