The Down Side to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks 432 Park, one of the wealthiest addresses in the world, faces some significant design problems, and other luxury high-rises may share its fate. A management email explained that “a high-wind condition” stopped an elevator and caused a resident to be “entrapped” on the evening of Oct. Leaks, creaks, breaks: The downside to life in a super-tall condo tower. Wind sway can cause the cables in the elevator shaft to slap around and lead to slowdowns or shutdowns, according to an engineer who asked not to be named, because he has worked on other towers in New York with similar issues. Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, BreaksFebru5:31 PM Subscribe. THE nearly 1,400-foot tower at 432 Park Avenue. Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks. 432 Park, one of the wealthiest addresses in the world, faces some significant design problems Residents of the exclusive tower are now at odds with the developers, and each other, making clear that even. One of the most common complaints in supertall buildings is noise, said Luke Leung, a director at the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. We really do apologize for this most inexcusable of inconveniences.Īlso, never go to the ninetieth floor, because rescue crews have made it clear to us that they will never enter the residence to save anyone.He has heard metal partitions between walls groan as buildings sway, and the ghostly whistle of rushing air in doorways and elevator shafts. This is all to say that the existence of this fire prevents the temperature in the building from ever dropping below seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit, which isn’t life-threatening or anything like that but also isn’t a comfortable indoor temperature, either. The skyrocketing value of the unit has given the fire legal status as a resident, so the fire has as much right to be there as any other occupant of the building. It remains safely contained to its unit, owing to the up-flooding of water to the top of the building. Because air needs to be pumped into the low-oxygen areas at the top of the building, a fire that broke out on the ninetieth floor receives a steady stream of pure, unadulterated oxygen, keeping it eternally fuelled. There is a fire that “lives” on the top floor. Stay out of the crevasse in the hour after sunset, or the building will eat you. This large gap in the center of your unit assists in the expansion and contraction that the building necessarily undergoes with temperature changes, moving as much as eight feet during the day. There is a crevasse in the middle of your residence. Making anyone who is sleeping have the same dream, in which snowmen are the real people and real people like us are what snowmen build around Christmastime.Forcing you to breathe what’s known as “shaky air,” which can bruise your lungs.Reversing the flow of blood in your body.Vibrations caused by the building can have unusual effects. There’s no assistance from gravity the way there is when you’re going down in one of our elevators, so we recommend that you start your elevator ride at a floor that’s above your unit. The elevator gets stuck when you choose to go up. (Note: for you to survive as well, be sure to spend at least five hours per day in your management-issued deep-sea diving suit or your apartment’s bathysphere.) Bugs are the only creatures that can withstand the high atmospheric pressure exerted on the building. We’d be much more worried if the building didn’t make any effortful noises! These are perfectly normal-it’s just the sound of the building trying to stay up. We are also dealing with a phenomenon called “up-flooding,” in which water from leaks flows upward and puddles on the ceiling. These include water leaks, power leaks (electricity leaking from the wires), pipe leaks (pipes slipping out of the walls), vision leaks (from your field of vision), and acid leaks (unknown origin). So be prepared for long stretches of low visibility within your residence. Because we were forced to build the upper floors with porous construction materials, clouds outside of those floors pass right through the building. As a new resident, you should be aware that the physical strain created by this combination of sky-high and extra skinny produces the following unique (we like to think of them as “exclusive”) conditions within this building:Ĭlouds penetrate the building. Welcome to 5050 Fifth Avenue, the newest in a crop of super-tall and extremely narrow New York City residential buildings! Of course, there are many tall buildings in the world, but few match this particular mix of excessively tall and overly slender.
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