A curious design that looks like it has been created "just so we can". I'd love to know the rationale behind it. Maybe maxing out the value on a per-square-foot ground plan basis?

Another ugly monstrosity to continue the ruin of the Manhattan skyline. Curious how they will solve the problem of ice falling on pedestrians hundreds of feet below.

Preferred the aesthetic days when the Empire State Building was the tallest, and architects honored the idea – for decades – that ESB would remain the central focal point in Manhattan, with all other buildings lower.

The "invasion of the glass pavilions" known as Hudson Yards destroyed that - these superskinny skyscrapers simply bring the aesthetic destruction further north into Manhattan.

Fugly. Imagine being on the top floor for Hurricane Sandy #2.

Close up photos would be nice. SHoP architects always do cool and innovative details.

It's a very tall "laundry". You need a very good pilot to hit it. (The billionaires are so hard to define, the complexity of how they became "rich" is enormous. It's NOW only important HOW they spend their money!) But Dezeen isn't the place to argue about that. Let's all try to build green, please.

This building reminds me of the kid who climbs too high without thinking about how he is going to get down. This building won't last forever, and god help whoever has to take it down before it falls down. It's just so unnecessary.

This is fatphobic! ROFL.

Yes, but why? What was the need of this?

It's what humans do; we do things. Is there a need for sports? Or need for art, traveling, fancy omakase, or this building? Human doesn't exist only to satisfy what he needs; that's called "surviving," not "living."

There are a few selected people with a lot of money, right or wrong we all have our opinion about it but this is a fact. Those people with a lot of money like to make more money (another fact). They could invest it in a way that creates no labor (stock market, buying existing stuff and reselling them, buying bitcoins or moronic Virtual-ART etc.). Or they could invest them creating something allowing movement of money that trigger down to architect/engineer/construction people and so on...

You can complain all you want, but there is a family of a construction-worker who got a decent salary for nine years because of this building and all that is involved. Again is it the best more humanitarian way to spend billions? Of course not! They could have fed a whole African country for one year with the money used to do that building that very very few people will use, but unless you are the one with the billions, you have not much of a saying.

Yeah, billionaires should all be awesome altruistic charitable people; we would live in a better world for sure. I suggest you become one of those billionaires so we can see how good deeds are really done and what the world really needs! Until then, enjoy this tall new building. They could use that money to start wars, [no Pu(ti)n intended] so I wouldn't complain too much.

An interesting point you make but still this thing has no beauty whatsoever and that's the point. We are looking for beauty not the re-distribution of money. Is it not the role of architects to educate these billionaires you speak of? Or is it a question of collecting money and building any nonsense joke dreamt of?

We have always had a rich few in human history, going from ancient Indian civilisation to Persian civilisation, to Egypt to Greek to Roman to present time. Go look at what they left behind and compare. This building is nonsense – so much so that it is unlikely to stand any test of time like any true great work.

I know our present period is based on 15 minutes of fame and fake news. This one is architecture's contribution to the throw-away culture of present mankind. Interesting times when our rich cannot see.

Sorry just because this building is not beautiful to you, it is not absolute. You are not the center of the universe. And your taste is not final; I'm not too fond of neoclassical buildings, for example, but some people really do (and I am not talking only about Trump.) I honestly don't dislike this building. It is not my favorite, but I don't hate it.

The role of the architect is to make a building safe according to rules and regulations, accessible, and functional, not to educate the client about aesthetic standards. It Is very arrogant to think you own the last call on what is beautiful and what is not. I am pretty sure the architect did what he liked within the limit of budget/code/commission.

Just because you like what the Greeks and Romans left behind doesn't make you right. Roman has a saying, "De gustibus non est disputandum."

Not everyone can be a billionaire, nor it is even possible. Consider: an advertising executive could make ten times as much money as a garbage collector, but that doesn't mean he's working harder. And at the end of the day, whose job contributes more to the smooth functioning of society?

Heather Bresch (the CEO of Purdue Pharma) makes some 400 times as much money as I do; it doesn't mean she works 400 times as hard as I do. There will always be a need for people who do the sh*t work, and the people at the top don't seem to pay much attention to them.

I never mention working harder. I don't believe billionaires work harder, nor do I think working harder is an absolute value. I think working too hard can actually be, in some cases, a defect of the person as he neglects family and other essential things. So not sure what your comment is about.

Some facts interspersed by some conjecture and baseless personal opinion. This "trickle-down economy" is a fallacy. None of the salaries you mentioned will even come close to covering the level of wealth the labor of these people generated for years to come since real estate goes up in value in a place like NYC.

If you want a fair world, people like architects, engineers, and the construction crew should be paid royalties for as long as the building exists. They should get dividends from each profit from a sale. Now that would be fair.

Your sarcasm was ridiculous, you know full well that self-made billionaires have nothing to do with hard work. Do you think Mark Zuckerberg worked hard when he created his aberration of Facebook? Most rich people are rich due to inheritance.

You've set an impossible task for someone to be able to prove their point because you knew they could never do it, and that's why your comment gets destroyed by your own carelessness. Can't take you seriously.

This building isn't needed at all. Land should always be productive. This building will sit mostly empty because we all know apartments will be bought for money laundering and investment. It will suck energy to keep it lit and heated including the pool. Energy that we should be saving.

The land below will sit unproductive. Just because we can doesn't mean we should. As humans we should be using our brains and not just do stuff because it's possible. It's possible to kill people it doesn't mean we should.

While we are at it, let us rid the earth of other conspicuous displays of wealth – starting with the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Better for resources to be spread uniformly, so that this world may be void of anything notable, special, experimental, aspirational.

Let us not be burdened by these follies, lest they inspire us or cause us to dream of great things which have yet to be built. May we be ignorant of the possibilities of this world, if they are not available to everyone...

Quite the contrary. This may not be the next Taj Mahal, but I think it is a beautiful addition to the Manhattan skyline. Like many "commoners", I enjoy walking the streets of that dense little island, marveling at the spectacle, in awe of this wonderful concentration of human creativity, ingenuity, labor, and sheer force of will.

Nearly everything humanity is engaged in is beyond the requirements of survival. It is what makes us human.

I really don't know where this hard work thing comes from, and I prefer a billionaire that creates a building rather than one that buys a company to break them down, making money (Pretty Woman style) or buying virtual coins starting nothing. You, people, are bitter with rich people; good, nothing wrong with it, but in the process of developing that bitterness, you lose connection with reality.

Of course, most people are bitter toward the rich. They steal most of the money that should be more equally distributed. You are a hypocrite.

You would feel extremely aggravated if your boss took credit for something that you did but here you are pontificating for rich people when they steal money from workers. Yes – steal.

When you see in the news that a guy has made 45k in 6 seconds past the midnight clock on the 1st of January while it would take the average person hours of painstaking work during a whole year to get that, it should make you question things. You're nothing but a PR bot, and I see right through it.

You are a master in missing the point like most bitter people they lose size of what is important. No point in reason with people full of hate.

What an impressive non-response. Definitely a PR bot. I hope all the money your rich masters are paying you to make them look good is enough to buy you a few cocktails.

At least this PR bot has a name and put his face behind his opinion. He is not a coward that hides behind anonymity.

That means absolutely nothing. I could put a fake name and fake photo very easily. What's your point? Are you going to share a photo of your passport also?

Please let it be a rocket to Pluto. Thank you.

Why does Dezeen persist in stating that architects start and complete construction? Most architects know nothing about construction and that is why there are so many bad buildings and building failures. I fear this will be among those soon.

Skinny or tall, who really cares. It is a horrible design that has the guts to come to the ground.

This deeply troubles me and disturbs every person I have discussed it with in the past few days from every profession. Style or innovation notwithstanding, the proportion is a ghastly and irresponsible eyesore, an invitation to problems if not danger, and exactly the wrong precedent in this location; perhaps in any location. Anyone involved in green-lighting this deserves pity for future repercussions.

They deserve a prison sentence.

It's always all about the money and wherever there's a concentration of wealth, like in a building like this, there's no culture or atmosphere at street level because the wealthy do not associate with anyone below their level of living standards. Where there's is no balance there's no culture.

We've got less than a decade to decarbonize or they'll be no functioning New York City in a couple of decades, and I can't even imagine the greenhouse gases emitted in the service of this svelte monstrosity to immoral excess.

Probably because we're unaccustomed to the arrangement. A scissor stair makes full, as opposed to partial use, of a stairwell void. A completely separate, second stair would require a second well, the void in which wouldn't be fully utilized either, wasting valuable floor space.

The NYC codes require that the flights of each stairs must be robustly partitioned with masonry or concrete having a fire rating equal to the walls between the well and habitable spaces. There must also be no possibility of smoke transmission between the two flights. They're being utilized in relatively low-rise towers, not just supertalls, for example a recently completed 11-story condo building in Manhattan.

Should be ok, if the stairs are pressurised. The real deathtraps are the buildings from the 80s and 90s, which feature almost no safety feature.

New York City has been hit by magnitude five earthquakes before. Just saying.

Tall buildings are actually better in case of earthquakes, as they dissipate energy oscillating. That said, in case of shaking, the top floor would experience very nasty seasickness.

I wouldn't want to be in the penthouse during a major windstorm.

Exactly. At what wind speed and gusting will it fall over? Storms are getting stronger each year.

I've lived in and around NYC for more than 30 years and one of the things I've cherished is the interesting communities and amenities to be found at the street level shops and services in every neighborhood. If no one "lives" in these edifices, how does the building "nourish" the surrounding real estate? Does the streetscape wither in service to the "sliver"?

Very well said.

1) Will the plumbing and elevators work, reliably? (They don't, reliably, in similar towers.)

2) Even if all the units sell, will the actual occupancy rate beat 60 per cent? (Or is this simply yet another place to diversify the parking of money?)

With the "refugees" fleeing NYC, it'll only house maintenance workers and a couple of millionaires.

I have heard (frequently) that it's a misconception that length matters.

Is it Russian "billionaire" free?

Love the power of architecture to capture a particular kind of obsession.

Very dystopian choice to face all the balconies away from the park.

Away from the park is also the south facing elevation. Because who doesn't like sunbathing on the 80th floor?

They need to slide the park east a bit so the tower ends up exactly on-axis. If I was paying mega-bucks I would demand to be "on-axis". Yes, my desk is very tidy and yes my record collection is in alphabetical order (alphabetized for you Americans). I don't have one of those tool hanging boards with the silhouettes though... that would be OCD'ish.

Extreme architecture will always have issues. I'm pretty sure that this one will suffer the same problems as other new skinny towers in the city - the people on the top floor will feel the building sway, sometimes dramatically.

I've been in a building that does this in a storm, and it's absolutely not for me - I felt almost seasick. But I suppose those realities hardly matter, since these units were build as places for international billionaires to launder - er, park - their money.

Five years from now, if you questioned an actual resident (if one ever exists), they'd probably say they've never seen anyone else living there.

Residences count of "...1 per floor plus 14 in adjacent building (?), totaling 60" left me confused.

Poor writing. The upper floors have multi-story residences, so it should have read "... a maximum of one per floor..."

Thanks. Now... what's with "adjacent building"?