The Columbia Building Intelligence Project (C-BIP) leverage data-enabled geometry to drive the iteration of design strategies. The specific use of CATIA allows this exploration to occur and provides a design space that allows feedback of metrics to the designer. In this project for the 60 Broad Street tower, our building strategy focused on the ability to quickly iterate at a coarse-grained level while deriving more detailed metric outputs through the programmed intelligence.

The ultimate goal of our strategy is to enable a redefinition of value within this specific office tower typology. Existing conditions require that value is rent-driven and therefore governed by the interests of the owner. However, both a changing culture and a changing market in downtown Manhattan suggests rethinking this value system. Our proposal is to create hybridized value between finances and employee experience and productivity. Given that each business has diverse needs, we are providing heterogeneity through spatial typology and microclimate—negotiated through the tradeoff of dead load in the slabs and facade—in order to affect employees via their daily routines and physiological working conditions.