Random House Tower

The Random House Tower is a Contemporary skyscraper designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, in association with Ismael Leyva Architects, and built between 2000 and 2003, for a reported $300 million dollars, in New York, NY.

Random House Tower is not the only name you might know this building by though. The building is, or has also been known as The Park Imperial.

Its precise street address is 1739 Broadway, New York, NY. You can also find it on the map here.

In 2002 the Random House Tower was awarded with the Award of Merit from New York Construction.

The tower houses the global headquarters of Random House, one of the leading English-language publishers, and the luxury condominiums The Park Imperial.

The firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designed the office portion, while architects Ismael Leyva and Adam D. Tihany designed the residential section.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design, in association with Ismael Leyva Architects.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the Random House Tower a reality:

• Thornton Tomasetti in charge of Structural Engineering
• Plaza Construction Corporation as the Main Contractor
• Steve Ross as the Main Developer
• HLW International in charge of Interior Design

The Random House Tower can be categorized as a Contemporary building.

The Random House Tower uses a frame structure made of steel and reinforced concrete columns and reinforced concrete slabs.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade uses a non-load bearing curtain wall system. This means the curtain wall modules are anchored to the building's structural frame, typically by being attached to the edge of the floor slabs. The curtain wall system connects to the slabs using brackets, anchors, and mullions, which transfer the loads imposed by wind and temperature changes, to the building's primary structural elements.

This setup allows the curtain wall to accommodate differential movement between the facade and the structural frame, such as thermal expansion, floor deflection, or sway from wind forces. This system's integration with the slab edges also allows for continuous insulation and weatherproofing layers.

The lower part of the building, corresponding to the offices section, uses a structure made of steel columns and concrete poured over steel decks and slabs, while the upper part of the tower uses reinforced concrete columns and floor slabs.

The top floor of the steel structure is also fitted with steel trusses at the facade level, providing structural stiffness.

This building was the first in the United States to feature a tuned liquid column damper to minimize lateral movement and improve residents' comfort.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features gray granite and dark glass.

The building is organized into five different segments that rise to different heights. The outer segments, which are the shorter, are clad in gray granite, creating a rectangular grid that frames the windows. The three center segments are completely clad in dark-tinted glass..