Details from the last unveiling...
(NY Times)
Architects unveil new design for Freedom Tower
By David W. Dunlap and Glenn Collins
June 28, 2006
Eager to avoid creating a fortress that overshadows the World Trade Center memorial, the architects of the Freedom Tower unveiled a new approach today. They would clad its 187-foot-high, bomb-resistant concrete base in a screen of glass prisms rather than metal panels.
This and other notable refinements were described by the building's lead architect, David M. Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Even after the revisions, the building would still evoke the twin towers in its height and proportions. Its rooftop parapet would be 1,368 feet above the street, as was that of 1 World Trade Center, the north tower.
It turns out that in another important respect, the Freedom Tower would echo the twin towers: it would have a sky lobby. Tenants headed to the upper floors of the 102-story building would take express elevators to the 64th floor and then transfer to local elevators.
The basic form of the building has not changed. It is an obelisk on which the corners are both tapered and chamfered, or cut away diagonally. The tip of its spire would still mark the symbolic pinnacle of 1,776 feet. It would be illuminated at night in an echo, however abstract, of the Statue of Liberty's torch.
The biggest changes have been made to the base; in essence, a security pedestal that is meant to lift the glass-clad office tower out of harm's way in the event of a bombing.
Though it looks fairly small in an overall view of the building, the base would dominate almost any view north from the World Trade Center memorial, across Fulton Street. From a pedestrian's perspective, it would be the face of the Freedom Tower.
The only occupied space within the base would be the lobby, with 50-foot ceilings. The rest of this lower structure would be used for mechanical equipment.
Mr. Childs now proposes to cover the base in panels of laminated glass with a saw-tooth face made of prisms in a vertical array. "You know this from high-school physics class," Mr. Childs said. "The sun hits the prism and breaks into color."
Behind the glass would be concrete for the first 60 feet, then an open space known as a plenum, through which air is drawn to cool the equipment inside. At this point, there would be one- or two-foot spaces between the glass panels, backed by a protective aluminum screen.
Mr. Childs said that the base, made of high-density concrete (he would not specify the thickness of the walls, for security reasons), "does the job that the New York City police want it to do, in every respect."
Another noticeable change to the base is that its corners would be chamfered and tapered like the tower above. But the corners on the base would taper outward as they rise, creating four triangular spaces at ground level where small reflecting pools would go.
The main office entrance would be on Vesey Street. Visitors to the observation deck would enter from a triangular plaza off West Street and go down to the concourse level, where they would be screened. From there, they can make their ascent. Restaurant patrons would enter from a small plaza on the east side of the building.
The office tower, 1,182 feet in height, would be clad in 13-foot-high glass panels that cover not only the window openings but the horizontal spaces between them, called spandrels. That is meant to create a seamless, transparent expanse.
This long shaft has eight faces: elongated, interlocking isosceles triangles. The floor plan begins as a 200-by-200-foot square. As the corners taper, the plan turns into an octagon and then reverts to a square again, but one that is only 145-by-145 feet.
Because the base would be so tall, the first office floor atop the base is counted as Floor 20. There would be 69 office floors, ending at Floor 88. Above that would be broadcasting space on the 89th and 90th floors, followed by three mechanical floors so high they are counted as nine stories.
In the upper reaches, a restaurant would occupy the 100th and 101st floors. The enclosed observation deck, which would almost undoubtedly include a gift shop, would be at 102. Above that would be three floors of mechanical equipment.
The last 408 feet of the tower's height would be a structure, clad in fiberglass composite panels, with a gentle convex curve in the middle. Designed in collaboration with the sculptor Kenneth Snelson, it would hide a bristling forest of antennas.
More equipment would be hidden within a halo-like circular structure, 145 feet in diameter, close to the base of the spire. The entire ensemble will be illuminated, Mr. Childs said, with light-emitting diodes and floodlights.
__________________
NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
|
Prev
Linear Mode
