Corey Gibbons - Zibaldone 8

Inevitably, a building must meet the sky one way or another.  As a result, there are a variety of ways that this interaction can happen.  While some buildings choose to acknowledge their relationship with the sky, others do not seem to put in the effort and seem to simply stop at a given height.  The residential building on WIT’s campus designed by Perkins+Will, known as Triple 5, is a building that acknowledges its meeting with the sky.  It marks its inevitable vertical limit with a horizontal plane that cantilevers out over the sidewalk below and wraps around the perimeter of the exterior walls.  It provides a visual indication that it cannot continue to grow any taller.  Although it is a simple gesture, without this horizontal plane, the building would appear to merely be a vertical extrusion that is amputated at its maximum height limit.