Making Ando-calibre concrete is not for the faint of heart. "It's been a bit of a war," says Amit Khurana, a co-founder of Sumaida + Khurana, which is developing 152 Elizabeth. "Getting architectural concrete right is like a fight because it's so hard to do."

Because the concrete will remain exposed, any imperfection will be visible. Khurana's team practised pouring concrete for 18 months before starting work at the site. Even so, nine inspectors have overseen most pours to ensure that every protocol is followed. The crew has lugged in heaters, because concrete is hypersensitive to temperature shifts. And Khurana says they've rejected "several trucks" of mixed concrete for failing to meet the project's stringent specifications.

But it is the process, more than the ingredients, that distinguishes Ando's concrete. Like most architectural concrete, it is made of water, cement, sand, and small rocks blended with chemicals and slag, a by-product of steelmaking that lends the final result its creamy finish. The material is trucked to the site, where it is pumped into a formwork – essentially a mould made of large wooden panels.

Other architects might use bare panels of oak or fir, but those woods typically transfer their grain to the concrete as it dries. To avoid this, Ando has since the 1970s used plywood coated in plastic, which imparts a smooth surface. These panels are painstakingly connected so that the edges fit together tightly. Each mould is also pierced through with a series of steel rods, called form ties, which keep its two sides together. The form ties are in turn held in place by blue-plastic cones, which protrude into the wet concrete. When the formwork is removed, the seams between the wood panels leave behind Ando's iconic lines, while the plastic cones produce his trademark holes, which are partially plugged with mortar.

152 Elizabeth in Manhattan comprises seven luxury apartments. Supplied

Khurana predicts that this will be his last project involving exposed architectural concrete. "I don't think I'll have the energy to ever do something like this again," he told me. "This is my jewel."

Ando, however, seems drawn to concrete precisely because of the challenge involved in making a pedestrian substance appear extraordinary. In his hands, the material takes on a counter-intuitive grace. His designs direct light, air and people's movement in ways that recall works by artists like James Turrell or Richard Serra.

"I want to create a space which no one has created before with a very common material which anyone is familiar with and has access to," Ando has said of 152 Elizabeth. "Concrete can be made anywhere on Earth."

©2017 The Atlantic. First published in The Atlantic. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Interior rendering of 152 Elizabeth. Supplied

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