Developer of Jean Nouvel-designed New York City condo complex sued

The 100 Eleventh Avenue luxury apartment complex certainly is dazzling. French architect Jean Nouvel designed the building and its curved curtain wall consisting of colorless glass panes of varying sizes.

Living there isn’t quite worth the million-dollar price tags.

Loren Ridinger, a resident and founder of Motive cosmetics, is suing the building’s developers, Cape Advisors, as the Telegraph reports. Wind blows and water seeps through the gaps between panes of glass, and drafts have even caused heating pipes to freeze and burst, according to court papers.

“Much to the surprise and bitter disappointment of the condominium’s unit owners, the building’s ambitious design was poorly executed and subject to cost-cutting measures which left the lauded glass curtain wall with fatal construction defects,” Ridinger’s lawyer, Steven Sladkus, said in the suit.

In the past, residents have complained about cracking concrete, leaks, and curtain wall issues.

One-bedroom apartments are marketed for $1.4 million, and the penthouse is on the market for $20 million. A 430-sf apartment in the building is priced at nearly $1 million.

Photo: Steve Silverman/Creative Commons.

One of the hardest decisions multifamily developers and their design teams have to make is what mix of amenities they’re going to put into each project. A lot of squiggly factors go into that decision: the type of community, the geographic market, local recreation preferences, climate/weather conditions, physical parameters, and of course the budget. The permutations are mind-boggling.

A post-pandemic ‘new normal’ for apartments, Grimm + Parker, Building Design+Construction 2021 Exercise area

Multifamily Housing | Jun 30, 2021

A post-pandemic ‘new normal’ for apartment buildings

Grimm + Parker’s vision foresees buildings with rentable offices and refrigerated package storage.

Resiliency | Jun 24, 2021

Oceanographer John Englander talks resiliency and buildings [new on HorizonTV]

New on HorizonTV, oceanographer John Englander discusses his latest book, which warns that, regardless of resilience efforts, sea levels will rise by meters in the coming decades. Adaptation, he says, is the key to future building design and construction.