New York, NY The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has recognized two high-rise structures designed by DeSimone Consulting Engineers as part of the 2020 Award of Excellence competition. The winning projects include Zaha Hadid’s iconic One Thousand Museum residential tower in Miami and ARO, a high-end rental development in Midtown Manhattan designed by CetraRuddy.

The annual Award of Excellence program recognizes the world’s best tall buildings, urban contributions, emerging technologies, and innovative material use. As winners of the Best Tall Building category for structures standing 200-299 meters, One Thousand Museum and ARO will go on to compete in the respective “Best in Category” distinctions at the CTBUH 2020 Tall + Urban Innovation Conference that take place April 5-7^th in Chicago.

“DeSimone is honored to be acknowledged by CTBUH for these remarkable projects,” said Stephen DeSimone, president and CEO of DeSimone Consulting Engineers. “We are excited to continue our role in innovative design by using creativity and complex engineering to bring unique architectural visions to life.”

ARO at 242 West 53^rd St. is a new 62-story building that comprises 540,000 s/f. The building’s silhouette increasingly curves as the structure rises and is formed by a combination of shifting floor plates and balconies that extend from north and west-facing sides of the building on the third floor and from all cardinal directions in the top half of the tower. DeSimone worked with architect CetraRuddy to complete the tall, slender tower that stands 720 ft. above ground and only 75 ft. wide for an aspect ratio of 9.5:1.

Designed in collaboration by architect Zaha Hadid, ODP Architects, and DeSimone Consulting Engineers, One Thousand Museum’s undulating façade is comprised of Glass Fiber-Reinforced Concrete (GFRC) and functions as a structural exoskeleton that both carries the gravity loads of the tower and provides lateral stiffness to withstand high-velocity, hurricane wind forces. While exoskeletons are not new, they generally take rectilinear forms. By incorporating a permanent GFRC formwork system, the team was able to generate the tower’s unconventional and organic shapes. The 62-story, 709-ft. tower was completed earlier this year.

Both structures are fully complete with sales and leasing is ongoing.