Mixed-Use Tower in NoMad
Developed within Rethinking BIM at Columbia GSAPP under the instruction of Joe Brennan, AIA, Throne 30 is a simulation-driven mixed-use tower at 1227 Broadway in Manhattan's NoMad district. Rather than treating environmental analysis as a post-rationalization step, the project positions view simulation, CFD wind analysis, and zoning verification as the primary generative drivers of architectural form. Six candidate massings were evaluated through custom Grasshopper scripts before a rotated parallelogram geometry was selected for its optimal balance of view access, wind performance, and regulatory compliance under the M1-8A/R12 envelope. The tower's computational workflow extends from massing through structure, facade, and floor plates, all parametrically generated in Grasshopper and pushed to Revit via Rhino.Inside.Revit, establishing a continuous pipeline where design exploration and BIM documentation operate as a single integrated process. Throne 30 demonstrates that computation can serve not only as a tool for formal invention but as the connective medium between urban constraint, architectural ambition, and deliverable reality.
Custom Analytical Tools for Massing Optimization
Three original Grasshopper scripts were developed to evaluate massing options before any design commitment, converting environmental performance data into direct form-finding criteria. Each tool tests six candidate massings against the same site context, producing comparable results that guided the final selection of the north-facing curved parallelogram.
Panoramic View Analysis
The panoramic view script casts radial sightlines from every facade point and maps visual distance to a color gradient spanning zero to one thousand meters. Applied to all six massings, it revealed severe west-side obstruction cutting into primary view corridors, establishing a baseline readability of view access at the earliest massing stage.
Directed View Vector Analysis
The directed view script fires perpendicular sightlines from each facade surface, testing whether they terminate at an opposing building. The analysis revealed a west-side building directly blocking primary sightlines, so the final parallelogram massing tilts one facade plane to deflect away from that obstruction, reinforcing the rotated geometry as the most view-effective strategy.
