Designing with Air: Building in Manhattan

Essay, expanding design practices, High Density, Juan Roque Urrutia, ODA, Politics and economics, Territory and mobility, Unboxing New York

Air, Architect’s role, Building, Building regulations, Business incubator, City development, Construction, Design guidelines, Design limitations, Design strategies, Designing Strategies, Economy, Engineering, Essay, Façade, Flexibility, Footprint, High-rise, Manhattan, Megacities & High Density, New paradigms, New York, Practice, Residential, skyline, Structure, Urban Development, Urban planning, Urban policies

This essay is an excerpt of "Unboxing New York" by ODA, published by Actar Publishers -- https://lccn.loc.gov/2017956616

Land is at a premium in Manhattan, but its real value is up in the skies. The 1961 introduction of the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) made ad coelum a very lucrative business: A lot seized the right to be developed multiple times its size. This guideline capped buildable areas and made them the device to measure New York’s level of development.
Whether developed or waiting to be realized, air rights pile up in Manhattan lots to define the city’s “maximum skyline.” In its limited availability, a square foot of Manhattan’s “air” has escalated in value, averaging $225 as of 2017. With 300 million square feet of ZFA available, roughly $67 billion in air rights are hovering over the island, waiting to be developed.