The skeleton of the High Line -- an elevated railway built in the 1930s to transport cargo between factories and warehouses -- has been a shadow over the west side of Manhattan for more than twenty years. Now, following the ambitious project to transform the Chelsea railway into a public park and promenade, architect Neil Denari has dreamed up a 14-story apartment building that will defy gravity by cantilevering over the park. Denari's building, called HL23, will sit on a 40 foot-wide base on West 23rd street, but will expand upwards to house single floor units as large as 2,500 square feet. Construction begins in March 2008, and the project received seven waivers from the city in order to go ahead with an atypical -- and potentially imposing -- design. The simple fact that HL23 is drawing more praise than criticism, however, is testament to the building's innovation and charm.

Comprised of eleven residences ranging in price from $2.65 million to $10.5 million, the building is aiming for a gold level certificate from LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). As a "green" building, HL23 will provide green power, improved ventilation and air quality, environmentally friendly water fixtures and appliances to reduce consumption, and plenty of natural daylight to decrease the need for electric lighting. HL23 will have floor to ceiling windows on two of the three facades and specially designed, stainless steel panels on the side immediately over the park. The steel panels are curved so as to play with the light that will reflect off of them and to create the illusion of movement within the building itself.

The interior of the building will be designed by Thomas Juul-Hansen, a Danish-born architect whose clients have included Damon Dash, David Limpan, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and David Yurman. Due to the building's unique exterior shape, each apartment unit will have a different floor plan. "The homes," Juul-Hansen says, "will complement in every way the poetic form of the building, the romance of the views, and the natural impulse to live with great art that has inspired the neighborhood's character and the proximity to some of the greatest galleries in the world."

This June, the relationship between HL23, the High Line, and its surrounding neighborhood will be the subject of an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York. Entitled Fast Forward New York: Neil Denari Builds on the High Line, the exhibit will show the transformation of the west side from its industrial roots to its current cultural and artistic eminence. HL23 is scheduled to finish construction in the spring of 2009 and Denari hopes the building will honor the past just as much as it hints to the future. With respect to the past, he says, his goal is to "celebrate [West Chelsea's] gritty, industrial romance and the beautifully decaying form of the High Line." --CHLOE KAMARCK

READ MORE:
Architect Bill Massie creates a futuristic upstate retreat
A clutch of idealistic menswear designers are finally sprucing up the eco movement

MV STAT: When New York's Bank of America building is completed later this year, it will be the first skyscraper ever to attain a Platinum LEED accreditation. Building to LEED's highest certification specifications raised costs by an estimated $65 million...