5. 2 World Trade Center (1,340 feet)

Rendering by Bjarke Ingels

The new renderings are out by Bjarke Ingels’ firm BIG for 2 World Trade Center, a lucky change for those already feeling that the World Trade Center buildings are humdrum at best. Foster + Partners were the original architects of 2 WTC, but the key tenants of the building – 21st Century Fox and News Corp – thought the firm’s design was “more suited for an investment bank than a modern media company.” The new design, in Ingels’s words “looks like a vertical village of city blocks stacked on top of each other with gradual overhangs that, as each building block gets thinner, the overhang becomes longer. The building will be home to a lot of companies with a lot of different needs, so it has to be a lot of different buildings coming together as one.”At 1,340 feet it will be slightly shorter than the Foster +Partners plan intended at 1,358 feet.