8 Spruce Street Building vs One Vanderbilt

Comparing the 8 Spruce Street Building and the One Vanderbilt is interesting because they both rise in New York, NY, yet they were conceived by two different design teams, Frank Gehry and Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, and were completed at different points in time. They were finished more than a decade apart.

This contrast within the same city allows us to see how different creative minds interpreted the evolving needs of New York across time.

Let's take a closer look!

These two towers present an interesting contrast in their proportions. The One Vanderbilt rises higher at 1401ft (427m), while the 8 Spruce Street Building reaches 869ft (265m). However, the 8 Spruce Street Building accommodates more floors with 76 levels above ground, compared to 67 floors in the One Vanderbilt.

This suggests different approaches to interior space design. The One Vanderbilt has an average floor-to-floor height of approximately 6.4m, while the 8 Spruce Street Building has more compact floors averaging around 3.5m each. The taller building's more generous floor heights might indicate grander interior spaces, higher ceilings, or different programmatic requirements.

These different proportions likely reflect the specific needs each building was designed to serve, whether driven by zoning regulations, client requirements, or the intended use of the spaces within. The contrast shows how architects can achieve different spatial experiences even when working with similar overall building scales.

Both the 8 Spruce Street Building and the One Vanderbilt were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the Contemporary style.

At the time, this style was at the height of its popularity. So both Frank Gehry and Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

The 8 Spruce Street Building is primarily residential, while the One Vanderbilt is primarily commercial.

The 8 Spruce Street Building offers 899 residential units.

The 8 Spruce Street Building also provides 175 parking spaces.

The two towers rely on different structural systems, reflecting distinct engineering strategies.

The 8 Spruce Street Building uses a Frame structural system, which relies on a regular grid of columns and beams to sustain its weight, while the One Vanderbilt uses a Trussed Frame system, that uses diagonal bracing in addition to beams and columns for stability.

Yet, when it comes to their facade, they both employed the same solution, a Curtain Wall facade.

A curtain wall is a non-load-bearing facade hung from the structural frame. It is anchored to floor slabs and transfers only its own weight and wind loads, allowing for sleek, glassy exteriors.