The Fashion Institute of Technology promised a new building in its ominous sounding 10-year Master Plan, and now the proposed design of "C2" is winning rave reviews, including a big OK from Community Board 5. The SHoP Architects design, featuring a woven facade incorporating techniques from the world of fashion, would rise on an empty plot on West 28th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues and back up onto FIT's original C Building (aka the Martin Feldman Center)?a mid-century classic of metal panels in a harlequin pattern that was completed in 1959. CB5's vote is the first step toward granting FIT a waiver on certain setback regulations that will enable the narrow 10-story building to hit the runway.
SHoP's 130-foot-tall, 99,908-square-foot plan would be the first ground-up construction project at FIT in over 30 years. The design is from SHoP's William Sharples, and the undulating materials are inspired by the stitching and folding of fabric. The design also features a fifth-floor North Quad that will be both light-filled and column-free, allowing direct accessibility to the original C Building's South Quad. Expanses of glass at street level will replace an existing long and tall brick wall that runs half the length of 28th Street. All the new activity on this desolate stretch might give the dwellers at The Onyx, sitting catty-corner across the way, something to ponder besides their great views of the Empire State Building.
· Campus Capital Projects [FIT]
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