Morgan North, the expansive, 645,000-square foot redevelopment of what was once New York City’s largest postal distribution center into a multi-use, sustainable property housing creative office space, a multilevel rooftop park and street-level retail, has won the 2024 NYCxDESIGN Award in the Outdoor Space category. The project team includes developer Tishman Speyer, lead architect Montroy DeMarco Architecture, design architect Shimoda Design Group and landscape architect HMWhite. NYCxDESIGN connects and amplifies the broad coalition of design that fuels New York City through its annual design competition and other programs. In 2011, underscoring the immense size and influence of New York City's design community, the City Council created NYCxDESIGN to convene and promote the flourishing design industry within the city and promote industry tourism. In 2020, NYCxDESIGN transitioned into a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. NYCxDESIGN FESTIVAL, New York City’s Official Celebration of Design, is the organization’s most impactful annual design event, established in 2012. Each year, the Festival, including the design competition, is an opportunity to spotlight New York City as a leading global design center, including visitors to the city, with hundreds of events focused on design and innovation, creativity, culture and sustainability. NYCxDESIGN extends its impact by spearheading meaningful year-round programs that champion diversity, foster equitable opportunities, and promote inclusion within the city’s design professions. Located at 351 9th Avenue in Manhattan, Morgan North encompasses an entire city block between 9th and 10th Avenues from West 29th to West 30th Streets. The building varies from a six-story to a ten-story structure along its West 30th Street frontage. The site originally served as a rail yard for the Hudson River Railroad and then as a United States Post Office distribution center, erected in 1933. Rail tracks previously extended from the adjacent High Line spur into the second floor, resulting in a building with large footprints and increased structural capacities. The USPS continues to operate a mail distribution facility on the cellar level and four lower levels of the building. Tishman Speyer’s intense focus on occupant health and well being is exemplified by Morgan North’s new, two-acre rooftop park, the largest intensive green roof atop a commercial building in New York City. This expansive customer amenity is an integral part of the comprehensive adaptive reuse of the building into a visionary 21st century commercial office building. The building has received a LEED Gold certification. The building’s historic 9th Avenue lobby has been meticulously restored, bringing its brass-framed entrance doors with an ornamental, double-height transom grille to its original beauty. In addition, Tishman Speyer and its architectural team created two new lobbies, one mid-block on West 30th Street and the other on the corner of 10th Avenue and West 30th Street. The two new lobbies feature rare, oversized 14” wide by 22’ long Douglas fir wood planks that provide a striking, continuous wall surface. Douglas Fir planks are also applied to the ceiling, creating a warm, seamless look to enhance the architecture and lighting design. The 10th Avenue lobby ties itself visually to the adjacent High Line spur by celebrating four large openings where the trains used to access the building. It features a work/lounge area and an intimate lounge room reminiscent of a vintage railroad café car. These hospitality elements promote the lobby space as a place of social gathering, introducing hospitality concepts into a commercial workplace environment. The levels 5 through 10 have been renovated with new lobbies, core support rooms, restrooms, stairs and eleven new elevators. The fifth and sixth floors boast floor plates of over 180,000 gross square feet each. The architects introduced three massive 32’ x 40’ skylights along the center of the floor plate, which dramatically transformed the 5th and 6th floors, exposing the 5th floor to enhanced natural sunlight. Further, the volume from the 5th floor to the top of the interior of each of the skylights is an impressive 46’, which offers unique design opportunities for future customers. The 7th floor’s new 30,000-square-foot pavilion features two 60-foot wide clear span bays, a 17-foot tall steel frame structure and a monumental skylight system. It is the anchor access point to the massive Rooftop Park amenity space. Additional team members included construction manager Urban Atelier Group, structural engineer Active Design Group Engineering, MEP engineer and lighting designer Cosentini Associates, LEED consultant: Vidaris/SOCOTEC and historic preservation consultant Higgins Quasebarth & Partners. Rooftop Architecture and Landscape Design The total rooftop park size is two acres or 112,750 square feet of outdoor space. The outdoor areas include the 84,750-square foot 7th Floor Garden Terrace; 30,000 square foot pavilion roof and 8th and 9th Floor terraces; and 8,000-square foot 11th Floor Tower Terrace. The 84,750-square foot roof terrace has been completely reimagined as a landscaped oasis that offers a direct connection with nature, light and air. The Rooftop Park features a natural-feeling, meandering landscape with a planting scheme representative of the distinct planting regions of New York State, designed by HMWhite. Landscape design principles organized the creation of enhanced views, while shaping spaces to serve a variety of shared uses and scales of activity. Coniferous hedgerows are arranged to mitigate prevailing winds and are combined with groves of canopy trees to soften and cool harsh sunrays. Further, these landscape placemaking features extend seasonal use. The woven pathways and the mosaic of varied landscape create the sense of an oasis in the sky. A variety of spaces are designed for collaborative work, recreation, and quiet inspiration. The ground plane is infused with areas for field games, nature walks, food, beverage, and covered gathering areas for work and play. The landscape design is composed of a series of layers, which references Northeastern US coniferous woodlands. It starts with the evergreen forest at the rooftop’s northern edge, transitions to a shrubland in its middle, and then flows into a low-lying wildflower meadow at its southern roof boundary. Each space is developed within a visually distinct landscape designed to improve comfort and awaken seasonal sensibilities. Landscape Architecture Highlights: • Elevated walkway at perimeter to allow views over parapet • Varied plant types to create colorful micro-environments that promote varied seasonal experiences • A variety of raised and sunken areas to create a feeling of natural topography • Varied outdoor congregation area sizes to promote different types of activities – places for solitude, as areas well as for communal gatherings Distinct Rooftop Park Features: • Gathering/Yoga Lawn • Event Open Lawn/Tent ready • Covered common plazas and trellis structures • Mini theatre area/Town Hall • Sunset Terrace • Vegetable Garden with raised planters • Abundant and varied furniture groupings • Decorative lighting design for after-hours activities • 30,000 RSF glass pavilion addition that anchors the access to the terrace • Speaker systems throughout