Credit: Evan Joseph

A few weeks ago, world-renowned architecture firm Foster + Partners unveiled their latest project, The Tulip - a 1,000 foot tall London tourist attraction, that, if realized, will tower above the rest of the city. Not to be undone in New York City, Aby Rosen's Foster+Partners-designed residential building, 100 East 53rd Street, which soars 63 stories high in Midtown, Manhattan, is nearing completion. Two new, stunning model apartments were just unveiled.

Aby Rosen is the world famous art collector and real estate developer who is reported to own more than 800 postwar pieces of art, including over 100 works by Andy Warhol as well as art by such noted artists as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Alexander Calder, Damien Hirst, Richard Prince and Jeff Koons.

Credit: Bjorg Magnea

Rosen commissioned artist Rachel Feinstein to create a custom art installation in the 24-hour attended lobby. If residents don't get their fill of art in the building and their apartments, they are located half a block from the impressive Lever House art collection, which Rosen has owned since 2003.

Credit: Bjorg Magnea

100 East 53rd will be a beacon for art collectors and art enthusiasts.  The residential building includes 15 gorgeous art gallery-like, downtown-style lofts with massive wall spaces to rival any art gallery. Rosen has merged the best of downtown and midtown and fused art and luxury living in one.

Credit: Bjorg Magnea

100 East 53rd Street features a handsome undulating façade that was inspired by its neighbor, both in structure and color palette, Mies van der Rohe's iconic Seagram Building. With furnishings by AD-100 designer William T. Georgis, the building is rumored to be the soon-to-be Manhattan pad of George and Amal Clooney, amongst many other noteworthy residents.

Additionally, the building also boasts it will be home to a world-class culinary market and a five-Star restaurant by superstar chef Joël Robuchon.

Credit: Bjorg Magnea

The list of building amenities is long and luxurious. They include passenger elevators that travel at an impressive 1,400-feet per minute, a wellness facility with a 60-foot sunlit swimming pool, a cardio room, a weight room, a pilates/ballet room and a yoga room. There is also a sauna, steam room, spa treatment rooms, his and hers private changing rooms and showers, residential lounges, a residential library, a world-class culinary market and a five-Star restaurant. In addition, the building anticipates LEED Silver certification

Credit: Gunner Hughes

The building is getting its final finishing touches now, including two new model apartments. The lobby and all of the amenities are totally complete as well, and move-ins are starting in December. The new model residences located on the 36th floor offer stunning city views, Foster + Partners-designed custom millinery, incredible stonework including Carrara marble with a knife edge's finish in the kitchen and Silver Striato travertine in the bathroom.

Credit: Gunner Hughes

36A is a 1,638-square-foot home with two full master suites and master bathrooms, and 36B is a massive 1,375 one-bedroom.

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The new Foster & Partners high-rise in the Islington district is on track to become London’s most cycle-centric residential building, with 1,486 bicycle parking spaces (one-and-a-half for each of the 930 apartments). Just as every resident gets their own apartment key and mailbox, they will also get a dedicated bike storage unit in the basement level. One quarter of the spaces will be provided in stackable storage racks. It's the first phase of London's new bike culture.

London’s 250 City Road twin tower development is the city’s most bike-friendly residential building, with 1,486 bicycle parking spaces.

The twin tower complex was designed by Foster & Partners, a proponent for cycle culture.

As for car parking spots, only 200 carbon dioxide-polluters get those. The message is as crystal clear as the surrounding air—motorless two-wheelers are preferred here. Giving new meaning to “riding the elevator,” these twin skyscrapers even feature special bike lifts and a bike maintenance workshop for residents in the basement of both towers—which beats getting scammed by unscrupulous car mechanics.

The towers, 46 and 32 stories respectively, occupy the site of an 1980s business park. The development will also showcase restaurants, cafes, retailers, three floors of office space and a 190-bedroom hotel, according to deZeen magazine. It reports that developer Berkeley recruited Foster & Partners after “buying the site and inheriting a previous design that it felt was not of high enough architectural merit.” Foster & Partners was up for the challenge.

The 130,600-square-meter project only has 200 parking spaces for cars.

Th twin skyscrapers offer special bike elevators and a bike maintenance workshop for residents.

The Foster & Partners’ twin towers design exceeds Transport for London’s new guidelines for high quality, bike-friendly infrastructure which are designed to transform London into a “[cycle-ized] city.” Under the guidelines, the 130,600-square-meter project would be expected to provide 1,223 spaces, according to deZeen, but Islington Council's planners insisted on even higher provision. The surrounding cluster of towers will feature similar bike-centric designs for parking and storage.

The city’s new guidelines are a proposed initiative of Mayor Boris Johnson to make London’s streets safer, healthier and to encourage more people to ride bikes (similar to what New York City accomplished under former Mayor Mike Bloomberg). Johnson has approved plans to create Europe’s longest segregated cycle lane through the city.

New building guidelines are Mayor Boris Johnson’s initiative to make London a cyclized city.

London Mayor Boris Johnson approved a plan to create Europe’s longest segregated cycle lane through the city.

deZeen magazine quoted Peter Murray, member of the London Mayor's Design Advisory Group, "It represents a big shift in London. All new developments have to meet the [cycle provision] requirements, but since this is a tall and dense project the impact and scale is impressive."

Foster & Partner’s reputation for cycle culture and low carbon transportation is well established (21% of its employees bike to work while another 20% walk to work). In 2014, principal Norman Foster proposed (along with collaborators Exterior Architecture and Space Syntax) “SkyCycle,” his ambitious concept design for elevated cycle paths above London’s railways, which according to deZeen, “aimed to create a 220-kilometer cycling utopia” of dedicated lanes.

In 2014, Norman Foster proposed an ambitious concept design for elevated cycle paths above London’s railways.

Architecture firm Gensler reimagined London’s abandoned tube (subway) tunnels as a subterranean network of cycle paths.

Meanwhile, architectural firm Gensler reimagined London’s abandoned tube (subway) tunnels as a subterranean network of cycle paths that generate electricity as people walk and pedal through them. Large cosmopolitan cities are putting the pedal to the metal. Bike culture is definitely fast on the move. If only London could change its bad weather culture.

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Foster + Partners has revealed that its new Chelsea condominium's uppermost penthouse will be sweetened with a splendid sky pool, occupying a small portion of its 4,000 square-foot private outdoor area.

The over-the-top amenity, which spans 61 feet, will be nestled within a stunning terrace overlooking the Hudson. The posh property is reportedly now on the market for a cool million . . . times fifty.

The listing is one of three spectacular penthouses at 555 West 21st Street, a luxury project that will be comprised of 44 lavish apartments upon its completion next year.

The suave building, which will boast an exquisite double height lobby accented with a prismatic wall; full-time doorman, porter, valet and concierge service; and a gated drive court, marks a new standard in Manhattan real estate, with its "cheapest" apartment priced at roughly six million dollars.

The awe-inspiring structure will be storm-ready to boot; it will be smartly armed with a waterproof wall of concrete sheathed in ornamental metal and granite stone, which will rise five or six feet above curbed level in case of a Hurricane Sandy-repeat. In addition, a gas-powered emergency generator will sit on its roof, poised 19 stories safely above its flood-prone basement.

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