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12 Buildings In New York That Resemble 3D Renderings

Have you ever wondered how an architectural structure appears as a realistic 3D visualization? Let’s stop here for a moment and consider a scenario. You are strolling through the streets in New York, and an amazing building catches your eyes? Such a gorgeous building may have even seemed undoable for you but somehow it looks like an amazing 3D visualization straight out of the computer. 

Let's be honest: we've all been there, and some of us are still there. This is a common occurrence since 3D rendering has advanced to new levels of complexity and inventiveness. Architectural visualization allows you to see your project in three dimensions, both inside and out, and analyze how it affects the environment. You can consider the objects in the immediate vicinity, the streets, even the landscape and temperature. A single design modification will have a domino effect and alter the entire design, demonstrating how one element of your project interacts with and impacts everyone else.

In this article, we have narrowed down 12 buildings in New York that look like 3D renders. What is even better, you can now draw inspiration from them.

 

Ross Hill, Manhattan

This 45-story residential building located in the heart of Manhattan is a perfect combination of traditional Gotham aesthetics and contemporary New York lifestyle. The façade and interior are both defined by magnificent art deco design, both of which showcase detailing and so appear as 3D architectural renderings. The tower responds to the legacy of inspiring and dynamic environments by embracing dynamic geometries and crafted materials. With a neutral color pallet, the interiors have a specific attitude of craft, luxuriously simple detailing, infused with elegant, warm modernism elements. The play of light and shadow creates contrast and creates a cohesive look of the building resembling the 3D architectural visualization.

Brooklyn Tower, 9 DeKalb Avenue

The Brooklyn Tower, a magnificent new residential structure in Downtown Brooklyn with unparalleled views of the city, river, and harbor, is formed by interlocking hexagons and dramatic cascade setbacks in a facade of shimmering bronzes and deep blacks. The facade powerfully holds its shape, texture, and materiality at every angle and resembles a 3D visualization when viewed from different perspectives. It deploys a wide variety of fluted, cylindrical, and triangular shapes arranged in a strongly vertical composition between oversize glass panes. This combination of effects gives The Brooklyn Tower an expression that is at once one of the welcoming, seriously dramatic, and extravagantly playful 3D renders.

Central Park Tower, New York

The iconic New York skyscraper is the Central Park Tower. The tower, completed in 2021, provides unrivaled vistas, stunning design, generous layouts, and unparalleled service. The grand living and entertaining spaces are strategically positioned in the corners of the residences to maximize multiple panoramas and citywide views capturing unprecedented views like on artistic 3D renders. With its breath-taking vistas, stunning architecture, elegant layouts, and exceptional service, Central Park Tower is one of the world's most exclusive destinations.

 

The Bryant, Manhattan

Designed by British architect David Chipperfield's The Bryant is a 32-story mixed-use concrete skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan that definitely looks like a photorealistic 3d architectural visualization. The concrete skeleton of the building extends into the interiors of the houses, giving the building substance and individuality. The Bryant is the embodiment of elegant, purposeful design and unparalleled centrality.

The structure is unusual and elegant that doesn’t shout out to you like a lot of the glass towers in the neighborhood. It adds additional symmetry and harmony to the park, which we like to refer to as a midtown paradise.

432 Park Avenue, New York

The building is a slender, unencumbered volume that serves as the skyline's geometric center. 432 Park Avenue is a manifestation of the Manhattan grid's exceptional qualities, and its design takes advantage of these parameters. The slender, tall, residential, and mixed-use tower rises as a prominent feature of the New York City skyline design based on the geometry of a square stack of seven individual structures on top of each other to create one of the city’s tallest buildings. Nonetheless, the architectural intent's regularity and simplicity coexist in the juxtaposition of a complicated structural solution that looks like an eye-catching and intriguing 3D visualization.

200 Amsterdam tower, Upper West Side

The 668-foot, 52-story 200 Amsterdam Avenue tower towers over Manhattan's Upper West Side and looks like a striking architectural visualisation. The apartments offer breath-taking views of the city, rivers, and Central Park, elegant floor plans, and high ceilings like pre-war apartments. The condominium's façade was designed by Elkus Manfredi as a modern take on Art Deco, with faceted panels mixed with large windows to produce a distinctive and more contemporary appearance. The tower's exterior is made up of an insulated glass curtain wall with aluminum framing, with a back-lit stainless steel Art Deco pattern along the length of the street-level façade. Even at 666 feet, a building of this size would be almost invisible in either the Midtown or Downtown skylines, so the extra exterior detailing and the overture to pre-war ambitions is both considerate and appealing.

The Vessel, Hudson Yards

Besides being a lesson in counting, the Vessel by Heatherwick studio forms a centerpiece not only for the plaza but also a focal point for the neighboring High Line, another peripatetic monument that offers unique and fascinating vistas on the surrounding city. Forming a major free public attraction at the heart of this district, the vessel represents an intention to create an extraordinary new kind of public legacy for New York. The interior views create an ‘urban theatre’, whilst looking outwards offers stunning views over Hudson Yards and the Hudson River beyond with details matching that of 3D visualization. The vessel is considered a ‘lively structure’, one that is susceptible to dynamic effects.

The Shed, Manhattan

The Shed is an eight-level arts space with a telescoping exterior shell located in Manhattan's West Side's rapidly growing Hudson Yards and looks like an eye-catching 3d rendering. The Shed has been labeled the "Swiss army knife of culture" because of its ability to do and be almost anything. It is a center for invention, experimentation, and collaboration. The designers from Diller Scofidio + Renfro chose to provide flexible space with elements responding to needs that will never go away: structural loading capacity, electrical loading capacity, and climate-, light-, and sound control. From the highly curated, fine details to the grand gesture of the architecture itself, every aspect of the Shed experience has been carefully considered.

111 Varick tower, Hudson Square

111 Varick marks the beginning of the next phase for Hudson Square in Manhattan, changing the once-industrial district into a residential enclave on the westernmost edge of SoHo. The building's appearance that looks like a 3D render celebrates New York City’s venerable and varied architectural precedents with the building’s design. The stepped massing of 111 Varick reflects the early Gotham skyscrapers' classic setbacks, while the facade smartly reinterprets the industrial character of the neighboring loft structures. The fenestration's geometric form, as well as a palette of industrially inspired materials including glass and blackened steel, reflects the nearby structures.

Oculus - World Trade Centre, Manhattan

Santiago Calatrava's transportation hub at the World Trade Center is inspired by a dove being released from a child's hands, featuring a pair of white steel-ribbed wings soaring 50 meters into the sky. Calatrava's design is manifested on the street level as a single free-standing object known as the 'Oculus.' The Oculus, located on the southern end of Daniel Libeskind's Wedge of Light, is a pleasant reprieve and counterpoint to its context's vast towering forms. The structure is something pure, pristine, and dynamic, and almost angelic like 3D rendering.

Via 57 West Tower

Via 57 West, BIG's first contribution to the Manhattan skyline, is a cross between a European perimeter block and a classic Manhattan high-rise, combining the best of both worlds: the compactness and effectiveness of a courtyard building with the airiness and panoramic views of a skyscraper. The building that looks like 3D visualization was built with a concept of sustainability that respects nature while also promoting well-being, allowing inhabitants to give back to the environment while also offering a place where they may live well and grow. This architectural vitality is supported with a level of programmatic complexity rarely seen in a residential high-rise: public-facing street-level businesses, art installations, and an upgraded pedestrian streetscape inject some life into what has long been a dull enclave of West Midtown neighborhood.

American Copper Buildings, Manhattan

The American Copper Buildings designed by US firmSHoP Architects are a striking new addition to the Manhattan skyline along the East River. Evoking the proportions of the nearby United Nations Secretariat, the sculptural design—two copper-clad towers that bend in the middle to meet at a sky bridge brings a new dynamism to an overlooked area of the city. The copper façade was utilized for texture, and the architect created diversity by staggering the panels in patterns that emerge from the sky bridge, making the building appear. This building definitely looks like 3D visualisation.

Written by

Trishla Chadha
Architect | Content writer

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