Even though the newly completed 565 Broome counts as SoHo’s tallest residential building – at 30 floors – it’s not that easily observable from the street. ‘We are part of the city,' says Elisabetta Trezzani, a partner at Renzo Piano Building Workshop, who worked with the Italian architect on the design. ‘Renzo says we don’t want to touch the ground in a possessive way,' she adds.
It’s Renzo Piano’s very first residential project in the United States, and NYC’s first luxury residential Zero Waste Building, but Trezzani, who also oversaw the RPBW-designed Whitney Museum, emphasizes that the methodology was similar.
‘We started doing studies and making massing models as we always do,' she says. ‘The first thing that came to mind was that due to the size of the site and the height limitations, we needed a break in the mass to achieve a sense of proportion.' The firm devised a design of two conjoined towers that translates ideas of transparency as well as a continuous connection to the city.
A low-iron glass façade links a double-height lobby seamlessly to the street, creating a light-filled entrance made of Spanish limestone, white oak plank floors and pre-cast concrete panels – a muted interior, but for a couple of bright red Fritz Hansen Egg Chairs.
Above, thanks to the towers’ twin shape and the unit arrangement of studios, one-bedroom and multi-room apartments, most corridors became redundant, maximizing floor space and enhancing a sense of home in the RDAI-designed interiors. The quietly distinctive curved corners of the condominiums, made of that same low-iron glass, allow for crystal-clear views of the surrounding city.
True to Piano form, this residential project boasts a glass-encased robotic parking of which the machinery is visible from street-level. The amenities, too, hold a number of features that reveal the RPBW signature. The Paris- and Genoa-based firm’s commitment to brightness and breathability ensured the presence of a courtyard with live green walls, a 92-foot tall indoor conservatory with three black olive trees that gives access to two communal spaces that house a library curated by Aaron Hicklin of Narrowsburg ( New York’s One Grand bookstore), a 55-foot long saltwater pool bathed in natural light, an above-ground gym, spa, and a playroom for children.
It all adds up to the project’s overall refinement and conceptual coherence. ‘The quality and quantity of detail in every little element, from outside to inside, is something that represents our methodology,' Trezzani concludes.
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