New York architecture studio Oiio have unveiled an eccentric design concept to counter the city’s strict building height restrictions: a looping skyscraper called The Big Bend.

Described by the studio as both “a modest architectural solution” to zoning limitations and as “the world’s tallest building,’ the thin structure – 4,000ft long if measured end to end – resembles an enormous upside down U-shape.

Renderings of the project imagine it looming over Central Park.

“We usually hear about the latest tallest building, and we’re always impressed by it’s price per square foot,” said the architects in a statement. “It seems that a property’s height operates as a license for it to be expensive.

“New York city’s zoning laws have created a peculiar set of tricks through which developers try to maximize their property’s height in order to infuse it with the prestige of a high rise structure. But what if we substituted height with length? What if our buildings were long instead of tall?

“If we manage to bend our structure instead of bending the zoning rules of New York, we would be able to create one of the most prestigious buildings [in the city].”