Hudson Square Tower With a French Accent Hudson Square Tower With a French Accent Françoise Raynaud, a Parisian architect, has created a 30-story condo designed both to loom over and blend in with its fast-developing downtown neighborhood.

Despite all the construction cranes that can be spotted around New York City, it is still the rare woman who gets to design a major building in this town. 

Annabelle Selldorf and the late Zaha Hadid realized various high-profile New York projects. Now, as the lead architect for Greenwich West, a 30-story condominium rising in Hudson Square, Françoise Raynaud joins the select group. 

Mrs. Raynaud, 59, is based in Paris and relatively unknown here, but she has made a name for herself at home with public and private projects, including libraries, cinemas, corporate headquarters and housing. She founded her own firm in 2005, after nearly two decades working for starchitect Jean Nouvel, much of it heading up his projects in Asia. 

“I was the specialist of towers in the office,” she said in an interview in Greenwich West’s sales gallery, which will open in late October. 

The new building will indeed loom over its neighbors in tiny, fast-changing Hudson Square, which is tucked into the western edge of Manhattan between Greenwich Village, SoHo and TriBeCa. Once a manufacturing district known for its printing plants, the area has lately attracted media, technology and advertising firms. Disney is relocating its New York headquarters there, and a 2013 rezoning intended to encourage residential development has spawned a wave of luxury projects. 

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