A revised design for the Freedom Tower at the former World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan was unveiled today at an awards ceremony of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects at the gleaming new skyscraper at 7 World Trade Center by David M. Childs of the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Mr. Childs?s design for 7 World Trade Center was one of the projects honored at the ceremony.
The new design keeps the basic chamfered form of the tower but lowers its base a bit and changes its fa?ade from metal panels to laminated glass.
In the previous design, the tower?s base was 200 feet high with vertical edges beneath the gently slanted facades of the tower. The base will have a 50-foot-high lobby and the remainder of it will house mechanical equipment.
In the new design, the base is 187 feet high and it flares outward a bit beneath the gently slanted facades of the tower, whose spire will be 1,776 feet high. The laminated glass panels of the base will act as prisms and Mr. Childs said that mock-ups of the walls will be built in Kearny, N.J., to test the base?s faceted reflections.
The lower 60 feet of the base will have concrete behind the glass. Above that the glass panels will be backed by a protective aluminum screen.
Daniel Libeskind, the architect who was the masterplanner for the redevelopment of Ground Zero, was quoted at the Gothamist.com as stating that the new glass panels ?have brought luminosity and a prismatic quality to the base and made the tower more crystalline.?
According to a Reuters article today by Mark Regan and Joan Gralla the new design uses a high-tech laminated safety glass, which if attacked by a lorry bomb would shatter into failing pebbles, not break into flying shards.? The building will be surrounded by steps leading to the entrance and short, thin bollards at the edge of the sidewalk placed perpendicularly to the tower.
The building?s 408-foot-high fiberglass spire will rise from a 145-foot wide ?halo-like? structure and will be an antenna that has been redesigned by Kenneth Snelson, a sculptor. Both the ?halo? and the spire will be illuminated.
An article posted today by David W. Dunlap and Glenn Collins of the New York Times noted that the Freedom Tower will have a sky lobby on its 64th floor to transfer people to local elevators for the upper stories of the 2.6-million-square-foot tower that public officials now say will be completed in 2011. The article said ?there would be five service elevators that can reach every floor, including one water-resistant car, housing in a protected shaft, for use by firefighters and other rescue workers in an emergency,? adding ?there would also be a dedicated, protected staircase for first responders, to avoid the jam of rescuers coming up while tenants are heading down.?
The article also said that City Hall and the Police Department had been consulted about the redesign and ?raised no concerns.?
Entrance to the tower?s offices will be on Vesey Street while visitors to the observation deck will enter off West Street and go down to a security area in the concourse level.
The first office floor above the base is be called Floor 20 and there will be 69 office floors with broadcasting space on the 89th and 90th floors, the equivalent of nine more floors of mechanical equipment, a restaurant on the 100th and 101st floors and an enclosed observation deck on the 102nd floor beneath three more floors of mechanical equipment.
The new design keeps the basic chamfered form of the tower but lowers its base a bit and changes its fa?ade from metal panels to laminated glass.
In the previous design, the tower?s base was 200 feet high with vertical edges beneath the gently slanted facades of the tower. The base will have a 50-foot-high lobby and the remainder of it will house mechanical equipment.
In the new design, the base is 187 feet high and it flares outward a bit beneath the gently slanted facades of the tower, whose spire will be 1,776 feet high. The laminated glass panels of the base will act as prisms and Mr. Childs said that mock-ups of the walls will be built in Kearny, N.J., to test the base?s faceted reflections.
The lower 60 feet of the base will have concrete behind the glass. Above that the glass panels will be backed by a protective aluminum screen.
Daniel Libeskind, the architect who was the masterplanner for the redevelopment of Ground Zero, was quoted at the Gothamist.com as stating that the new glass panels ?have brought luminosity and a prismatic quality to the base and made the tower more crystalline.?
According to a Reuters article today by Mark Regan and Joan Gralla the new design uses a high-tech laminated safety glass, which if attacked by a lorry bomb would shatter into failing pebbles, not break into flying shards.? The building will be surrounded by steps leading to the entrance and short, thin bollards at the edge of the sidewalk placed perpendicularly to the tower.
The building?s 408-foot-high fiberglass spire will rise from a 145-foot wide ?halo-like? structure and will be an antenna that has been redesigned by Kenneth Snelson, a sculptor. Both the ?halo? and the spire will be illuminated.
An article posted today by David W. Dunlap and Glenn Collins of the New York Times noted that the Freedom Tower will have a sky lobby on its 64th floor to transfer people to local elevators for the upper stories of the 2.6-million-square-foot tower that public officials now say will be completed in 2011. The article said ?there would be five service elevators that can reach every floor, including one water-resistant car, housing in a protected shaft, for use by firefighters and other rescue workers in an emergency,? adding ?there would also be a dedicated, protected staircase for first responders, to avoid the jam of rescuers coming up while tenants are heading down.?
The article also said that City Hall and the Police Department had been consulted about the redesign and ?raised no concerns.?
Entrance to the tower?s offices will be on Vesey Street while visitors to the observation deck will enter off West Street and go down to a security area in the concourse level.
The first office floor above the base is be called Floor 20 and there will be 69 office floors with broadcasting space on the 89th and 90th floors, the equivalent of nine more floors of mechanical equipment, a restaurant on the 100th and 101st floors and an enclosed observation deck on the 102nd floor beneath three more floors of mechanical equipment.
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
6sqft delivers the latest on real estate, architecture, and design, straight from New York City.
