51 Astor Place

Sciame was the Construction Manager responsible for the construction of the new office tower on the Bowery at 51 Astor Place. The building was designed by Pritzkerprize winning architect Fumihiko Maki’s firm Maki and Associates. The state of the art building combines office space on the upper floors with retail and academic space on the bottom two floors and basement.

The full block building sets back at the 5th floor where a green roof provides both a usable outdoor space for tenants and an environmentally friendly roof system that controls water runoff and temperature insulation.

The facade is energy efficient low-e structurally glazed glass and aluminum curtain wall. This site encouraged the design of a symbolic and lasting building to stand as a landmark within the Greenwich Village neighborhood. To address the large monolithic buildings along 4th Avenue, portion of the building was sheathed in a darktint, structurally glazed, unitized curtain wall system to conform to the existing streetscape. In stark contrast to the monolithic quality of the 4th Avenue facade, the 3rd Avenue facade was sheathed in a unitized curtain wall system with silver vertical louvers. Depending on the angle in which the vertical louvers are viewed, the facade achieves varying degrees of transparency, continuously changing in appearance.