Thanks.

I saw your thread on Tower 5 after I wrote the post here.

I think that the placing of the first beams was a symbolic act that the tower is under construction. There is still a lot of foundation work to finish before they can place many more beams.

The tower is architecturally better than its first model, and it does match the rest of the city's skyline. However, it has to lose its "bomb shelter" base.

Lamentably it can't.

Really, I don't get the point with that huge lobby. If someone blows a bomb infront of the building, there's many more worries than the hole tower coming down (smoke for example) and I don't think that base is gonna help with those. Plus I think it's ugly, but hey, that's just my opinion.

Freedom Tower has MAJOR ISSUES all over the board, mainly due to political cronyism. The Freedom Bunker is its unofficial name!

http://gutter.curbed.com/archives/28...edom.4.450.jpg

It's sad isn't it!

More news on the WTC front....(NY Times)

Behind the Scenes, Three Towers Take Shape

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images.../blocks600.jpg

Larry A. Silverstein, seated right, attended a presentation on Tuesday about the World Trade Center project.

By DAVID W. DUNLAP
January 18, 2007

FOSTER Maki Rogers,” it says on the doors leading to an 11th-floor design studio overlooking ground zero.

No such high-powered international architectural partnership actually exists. But Norman Foster, Fumihiko Maki and Richard Rogers all have employees working together in an unusual collaborative office as the second, third and fourth towers of the new World Trade Center take shape.

Tower 1, the Freedom Tower, was born in a flurry of headlines as its architect battled ground zero’s master planner, then had to return to the drawing board after the police questioned the building’s security.

Tower 2, designed by Mr. Foster, has already generated controversy, since it will displace what is called the survivors’ stairway on Vesey Street, the only aboveground remnant of the original trade center still standing where it did on 9/11.

But except for that, the towers have largely been out of public sight since the first renderings and models were unveiled last September by the developer, Larry A. Silverstein.

That is not to say they have been out of mind. Up to 120 architects, engineers and design consultants are working to meet a March 1 deadline for schematic design. This is the phase between the conceptual outline and highly detailed construction documents. The sheer scale is astonishing. Tower 2, for example, will be taller than the Empire State Building, less the antenna.

Though Mr. Rogers is credited as the architect of Tower 3 and Mr. Maki as the architect of Tower 4, the truth is that all three towers are intertwined, with one another and with the World Trade Center transportation hub being built by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

So three weeks ago, Silverstein Properties opened a blocklong studio on the 11th floor of 7 World Trade Center with desks for Foster & Partners, Maki & Associates and the Richard Rogers Partnership; for Adamson Associates, the architectural firm coordinating the entire project; for W.S.P. Cantor Seinuk and Leslie E. Robertson Associates, the structural engineers; for Jaros, Baum & Bolles, the mechanical and electrical engineers; and for the Port Authority.

The office is modeled on a collaborative studio created last year for the conceptual design phase, but it is about six times larger.

“We’re looking forward to enormous productivity,” Mr. Silverstein said. The goal of bringing everyone together in one studio, he said, was to create “a degree of interaction that couldn’t possibly exist if they were in their separate domains.”

Michael Jelliffe, a partner in the Foster office, described the arrangement a bit more directly.

“You can’t hide behind e-mail,” he said. “There’s a definite dynamic to it. It speeds things up.”

The pin board, where drawings are displayed, stretches about 150 feet and is in view of almost every desk, meaning that architects can keep an eye on the others’ progress.

“You can’t say, ‘I wasn’t aware of it,’ because you pass it on your way to get a coffee,” Mr. Jelliffe said.

EVERY month, the architects report directly to Mr. Silverstein. It was Mr. Jelliffe’s turn on Tuesday.

Tower 2, at Greenwich and Vesey Streets, will have four trading floors at its base to accommodate a financial service tenant. The architects originally proposed to locate the elevators for these floors at one end of the trading space, leaving a span of 150 feet for desks. Mr. Jelliffe said that by moving the traders’ elevators from the center to the perimeter of the building, space on the trading floors could grow by 40 feet.

He also told Mr. Silverstein that the architects had squeezed four inches out of the mechanical space in the ceiling of each office floor without diminishing the 9-foot-6-inch height of the tenant space. This means that, without an increase in the tower’s overall height, the number of office floors can be increased to 63 from 62. (What landlord wouldn’t appreciate an extra 36,000 square feet of leasable space?)

Among Mr. Silverstein’s concerns was the preservation of unobstructed views. He made a point of assuring himself that trusses being added to the perimeter of the structure would be only on mechanical floors, so as not to cut out windows.

He made similar points on Dec. 14 as Gary K. Kamemoto, a senior associate at Maki & Associates, presented Tower 4. The discussion that day began with the facade. The original concept had been to sandwich perforated metal mesh between panes of glass, to provide both shading and some transparency.

Mr. Kamemoto said other approaches were under study, including the use of a ceramic pattern etched onto the exterior pane of glass with a mirror-coated pane behind it. But he emphasized that the architects would be flexible and creative.

“You know us Japanese,” he said to Mr. Silverstein. “We build buildings out of paper.”

It's the way of the world.

But you don't like it anyway, so why even bother to poke the threads with your extreme hatred for the tower?

It's a hell of a lot better than the first three designs, which everyone thought had stunk.:banana:

Not everyone likes the design. I think it's actually better than the other 3. As far as the other post, better left ignored...

The base is meant to protect the occupants of the tower against a explosive attack whether from the outside or in. A vehicle cannot be driven into a lobby, and a dentonation outside pr inside by a man-portable explosive device would not have disasterous effects on the occupants due to the stand-off distance and protection provided by the pedestal.

It's meant to protect the tower, outside of it the vulnerabilities a greater and mitgated primarily by stand-off distance and surveillance.

Nontheless, if a explosive device is used, there are going to be casualties no matter what.

I can't say I'm crazy about the base, but Hey! Who cares? Just finally build the damned thing!

Mr. Kamemoto said other approaches were under study, including the use of a ceramic pattern etched onto the exterior pane of glass with a mirror-coated pane behind it. But he emphasized that the architects would be flexible and creative.

“You know us Japanese,” he said to Mr. Silverstein. “We build buildings out of paper.”

_______________________

Just as long as they don't decide to cover the damned thing with ceramic rods... :yuck:

I second that emotion. Just finally build the damn thing!!

We've waited long enough, and I think that it's high time that they just get off that high horse of theirs and put their words into action!:hell:

Today's cam spectacular...

http://www.renewnyc.com/WebCamImages...1814595900.jpg

Yeah this building is taking an awfully long time. :slob:

Yes, and even though the tower is under construction, it doesn't look like the core has gotten any taller.

What in the hell are they doing down there, sleeping?:shrug:

:previous: the teamsters have taken over the rebuilding process, they are relocating jimmy hoffa :notacrook:

For people having trouble understanding the pace, just look at the Goldman Sachs tower under construction accross the street. That one got underway a long time before this one did. The BofA tower had a similar start. It was nearly a year before it started to rise above ground.

So it's useless to keep posting the same redundant comments about the pace and asking the same questions. It's not expected to reach above street level until this time next year.

So what exactly would be taking place in the foundation that would necessitate an entire year before it starts rising.

That is my problem with the ceremony to install the first steel beams. They were erected earlier in the process than they would be in a conventionaly scheduled construction process. People now expect a timeframe comparable to other construction sites where steel beams have appeared, but alot still has to be done with the foundation. It will be about a year untill the project pokes above the streetlevel and then it will take off at a quick pace. Remember at BOFA that it took many many months until the lowrise portion started rising, then the lowrise section topped off and it took many months more untill the tower portion started to rise above streetlevel. Now BOFA is rising at a quick pace and the long wait for the steel to make an appearance is forgotten. It'll be the same with the Freedom Tower.

If you come back in a month it'll probably look more or less the same, if you come back in two years the Freedom Tower will already be dominating Lower Manhattan.