GDS Development Management and Klövern recently celebrated the completion and opening of 28&7, a new office building at at 322-326 Seventh Avenue in Chelsea. The 12-story building is located at the corner of 28th Street and Seventh Avenue and comprises more than 90,000 square feet.
Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the building’s façade comprises a grid of recessed, full-height windows and black glazed terracotta. The grid spacing widens at the ground floor, which contains the main lobby and a retail sub-component.
To minimize the necessity of interior columns, the architects integrated structural columns into the façade grid and utilized high-strength reinforced concrete in the floor slabs. As a result, the building offers column-free interiors with up to 40-foot floor spans.
“The façade has a timeless elegance to it,” said SOM partner Chris Cooper. “It evokes the gridded prewar buildings that surround it, and also reinterprets these buildings in a contemporary way, creating a new, and also distinct, black silhouette along Seventh Avenue.”
To improve energy performance, the windows are triple-glazed, which helps limit the transfer of heat in and out of the building, reducing the energy required to maintain a comfortable internal climate. At present, the developers are pursuing LEED Gold certification.
“28&7 is beautifully designed and impeccably built and sets a new high standard in the New York boutique office market,” said Michael Kirchmann, the CEO and co-founder of GDSNY. “With its modern take on masonry, it perfectly walks the line between standing out and feeling like it is part of its context.”
Tenant amenities include on-site bike storage, showers, and changing rooms. The 12th floor penthouse offers private outdoor space with partial shading.
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I think the design is lovely: scale, color, materials…..but have to acknowledge a serious potential design flaw: coming out of the subway during the last snow/ice storm…chunks of ice were sliding off the curved terra cotta sill pieces, falling to the sidewalk. Me thinks there could be a serious winter danger caused by the design………SOM? What do we think?
So strange it’s not another 3 or 4 floors higher…
28&7 definitely has a timeless elegance. Very well done.
Soultion for “J”…build scaffolding around the bldg., leave it there for 25 years like the rest of Manhattan.
Not a solution for me….I love the building but in the winter, will walk on the east side of 7th…..as the ice slides off the building. Seeing is believing.