Movin’ on up, now more than ever encapsulates stunning design, impeccable service, effortless living from the time the sun rises to well after the sun sets. We’ve been noticing a rising trend in the sheer number of luxury residences – we recently told you about an exclusive collection of seaside properties in Abu Dhabi. And now from New York to Buenos Aires, and from Moscow to Beijing, we’ll reveal a few more of the coolest luxury abodes.

Many of us have been accustomed to the stylistic cues offered by W Hotels across the world – but how many of us will actually have a chance to pick up the phone from our own kitchens and receive assistance from the ‘Whatever, Whenever’ hotline? Soon, for those who jumped at the chance to purchase a W-styled apartment in one of their newest locations south of the World Trade Center in New York City, the possibilities will be limitless.

W Residents may share the building with distinguished hotel guests in the lower portion of Manhattan, but luxury amenities such as a rooftop terrace, a fitness center and spa in the sky, a media screening room and digital lounge, as well as a entrance, will be solely for those permanently living in the upper floors of the luxury tower.

While the W Hotel New York Downtown will take up the first twenty-two floors, the upper levels have been split into furnished residences (Floors 23-30) and customized residences (Floors 33-56). Interior design exceeds expectations, even by W standards, with sleek and functional kitchen built-ins to a translucent wall from the bedroom to a ‘peek-a-boo loo.’

A bit further uptown in the heart of Tribeca, Five Franklin Place is destined be the epitome of luxury residences. The 20-storey building will contain 55 one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom units that will be set up as duplex lofts on the lower floors; single-level city residents above; plus three triplex penthouses each with a rooftop terrace and serviced by private internal elevators.

The building itself, designed by Dutch architect Ben van Berkell of UNStudio, will be wrapped in a series of horizontal black metallic bands – each of which ungulates as it curves around and hugs the frame of the structure. The façade is apparently a direct tribute to the original 19th century built form of cast iron that shaped lower Manhattan – and the metallic surface will reflect light while highlighting the magnificence of the neighboring buildings.

The building’s façade is not merely about aesthetics, as the bands will also create shading from the daylight, deflect heat, guarantee every residence will have the highest degree of privacy, and simultaneously frame unparalleled views out across Manhattan.

The Loft Residences on the lower levels have a double-height living area that maximizes the light entering the space. The height of the great room continues on through a gallery where a white lacquered library wall ascends up into the second level.

The upper-tier City Residences feature integrated terraces off the main living areas, and all units are custom-fitted with B&B Italia kitchens and built-ins throughout. The master bathrooms feature a circular sliding wall that allows the bathroom to become part of the bedroom and share its spectacular city views.

And for those at the top, the five ultra-luxurious Sky Penthouses are unmatched in practically every aspect. Again, B&B Italia has masterfully crafted the space, including the kitchen. Sweeping views from every room, even the master bathroom, automatically heighten the occupants’ awareness of their place in the cityscape and the surrounding environment.

The skylines of our cities are rapidly changing – ingeniously designed buildings are competing for our attention. But architectural beauty alone is not going to provide the type of service we’re growing accustomed to expecting after spending millions on luxury lifestyle. We feel that the rise of luxury residences has only just begun – and we want to know all about it. If you are aware of luxury residences we should investigate, please let us know.

“High-rise towers rarely develop the verticality of spaces they create, remaining instead only iconic objects in the urban landscape. Their interiors consist of stacked-up floor plates, maximizing leasable or usable floor area, and in urban centers where groupings of towers crowd to get her on the most expensive land, the spaces between the towers are ignored. No doubt, these conditions result from the single-minded interests of commercial developers and the isolation enforced by private property ownership.

The potential remains, regardless of the limitations of current attitudes, to invest the latent and actual verticality of towers with new programs of habitation that expand the meaning and experience of urban tower space.

This was the aim of the sixth semester design studio in the Graduate School of Architecture at Pratt Institute this past semester. It was realized in a one-to-one installation constructed by the members of the studio in the main space of a recent addition to the architecture building, designed by Steven Holl.

“The studio set out to explore a ‘proto-urban’ condition observed in cities throughout the world,” write the members of the studio. “Tower projects are rising to previously unimaginable heights, employing the very latest in technology, materials, design, and construction methodology. While many such endeavors enjoy great acclaim, the projects, typically ‘single point’ towers, rarely address the existing or emerging urban landscape. In this way, the tower, despite the use of expressive shapes and complex skins, is rapidly becoming the world’s generic building unit. Regulatory and economic realities often force this unit’s construction in a kind of non-contextual vacuum. Our studio explores what might occur if a complex of interrelated towers were to be commissioned. What types of relationships, physical or otherwise, might be formed? How might these new relationships change (for better or for worse) the ‘proto-urban’ environment?

Our proposal emerges from the spirit of research and is born of a commitment to an entirely collaborative design/build process. Our collective vision is the creation of four integrated towers. The structures are shaped and informed by a matrix of vertical urban planes based on an aggregate of the world’s many urban grids.Three of the emerging towers stand vertically while a fourth is set on a diagonal. The complex composition permits rich relationships between the structures and the ground plane while also giving rise to an entirely new form of public zone. The architecture will incorporate interactive experiences that fuse light, sound, and moving images in order to explore our studio’s interest in programs for verticality that relate primarily to the psychological desires and realities of ‘proto-urban’ dwellers.”

The results are visually powerful and evocative of new possibilities. What remains to be accomplished is a critical discourse about them, and a way to evaluate—or even answer—the questions invoked by “for better or for worse.”

LW

Pratt Institute Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design: Thomas Hanrahan, Dean; William MacDonald, Chair; Sixth Semester Design Studio: Liam Ahern, Tia Maiolatesi, Adam Grassi, Benjamin Keiser, Brian Choquette, Kurt Altschul, Johanna Helgadottir, Andrew Miller, Tapasi Mittal, Rob Jarocki, Drew Seskunas, Dhreiv Chandwania, and Lebbeus Woods, Professor; Guest critics: Narelle Sissons, Christopher Otterbine, Christoph a.Kumpusch, Steven Holl