HL23

Developed by Alf Naman and Garry Heher, HL23 is a 14 floor condominium tower that responds
to a unique and challenging site directly adjacent to the High Line at 23rd Street in New
York's West Chelsea Arts district. Partially impacted by a spur from the elevated tracks
that make up the High Line superstructure, the site is 40' x 99' at the ground floor. The
site and the developer demanded a specific response, yielding a project that is a natural
merger between found and given parameters and architectural ambition. For the client, the
question was how to expand the possible built floor area of a restricted zoning envelope.
For the site, a supple geometry must be found to allow a larger building to stand in very
close proximity to the elevated park of the High Line. Together, the demands produced a
building with one unit per floor and three distinct yet coherent facades, a rarity in
Manhattan's block structure

With a custom non-spandrel curtainwall on the south and north facades, and a 3D stainless
steel panel facade on the east facing the High Line, the project's geometry is driven by
challenges to the zoning envelope on the site and by NMDA's interest in achieving
complexity through simple tectonic operations.