!
Herbert Muschamp calls it a "stairway to heaven penthouse paradise," which is odd, since it looks more like a zipper than a staircase. The zipper on the fly of lower Manhattan. ["Chicka-boom!" indeed, Herbert.]
What is it? It's Santiago Calatrava's latest project for New York, a 1000' residential tower of cantilvered cubehouses on South Street. (yes, as in Seaport. NYC zoning laws now require super-luxury buildings to be built adjacent to cornball-laden malls.) Each cube will be a single 10,000 SF residence, with a 2,000 SF terrace on the roof of the cube below.
The form is based on sculptures Calatrava has been noodling with in his garage, and on technology used in the Turning Torso tower [left] he's completing in Malmo, Sweden (aka the Jersey City of Copenhagen).
If all goes according to plan, this architectural marvel will sit across the East River from Jean Nouvel's 1999 cantilevered glass-floored hotel, and will overlook Frank Gehry's cloud-like floating Guggenheim. Oh, downtown will become an architectural paradise at last. Somehow, I think we'll see WTC Memorial Ice Rinks in the footprints before then.
Related [?]: "A New Twist" for getting around lower Manhattan--entirely underground
