http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3672&page=639
http://robotsinmasquerade.blogspot.com/2010/12/architecture-update-1-world-trade.html
how the world trade centre site used to look before the twin towers were built
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1234697
Friday, July 22, 2011
4 World Trade Centre
4 World Trade Center at 150 Greenwich Street will face directly onto the World Trade Center (WTC) Memorial Park from the west. Rising 977 feet from street level, it will be the fourth-tallest skyscraper on the WTC site. Designed by Maki and Associates, the 72-story tower is intended to assume a quiet but dignified presence at the site while also serving to enliven the immediate urban environment as part of the redevelopment efforts of downtown New York.The podium of 4WTC consists of two retail levels below grade, ground floor, and three levels above grade. The remaining floors are set aside for commercial offices, totaling 2.3 million rentable square feet. One third of the office space is slated to become the new headquarters of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
The tower portion of the building will accommodate office spaces in two distinctly shaped floor plates. The lower- and mid-rise sections, floors 7 through 46, will feature a typical floor plate size of 44,000 rentable square feet in the shape of a parallelogram echoing the configuration of the site. These floors will be served by two elevator banks, each equipped with eight cars and one elevator bank with six cars. The high-rise section of the tower, from floors 48 to 63, will feature a trapezoidal floor plate measuring 34,000 rentable square feet. The trapezoid will be shaped and fluted to open toward the tip of Manhattan and triangulated from the lower floors to face 1 World Trade Center. These floors will be served by two elevator banks, each with six cars. Both office floor plans contain a central core with a 45-foot span on the west side facing the memorial, as well as on the north and south. The east side has a 35-foot lease span. The project will also provide access to Wall Street and the central PATH terminal.The building will feature many structural enhancements, including a reinforced concrete core and columns with steel girders and beams. Safety systems will be designed to exceed New York City building code and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey requirements. Designed in accordance with the highest energy efficiency standards, 150 Greenwich Street will seek to achieve the Gold standard under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) by the U.S. Green Building Council.
n designing 150 Greenwich Street, Maki and Associates took a two–fold approach – creating a "minimalist" tower that would assume an understated, reverent position opposite the memorial while developing a more active podium intended to foster interaction with the immediate urban environment at pedestrian street level, bringing energy and vitality as part of the overall downtown redevelopment effort.
The building's façades will be clad in floor–to–ceiling windows utilizing composite glass with multiple layers of coatings intended to achieve a mat metallic quality with a luminous sheen. This will give the tower an abstract quality – minimal, light, cool in color, and ephemeral, changing with the light of day. Seen from a distance, the tower will possess a unique angular profile that is chiselled at its crown, assuming position amid the spiral composition proscribed for Towers 1 through 4 under the master plan for the site.The office lobby, with a 47–foot ceiling, will face Greenwich Street and feature three entrances – one each on Cortlandt, Liberty, and Greenwich Streets. The lobby will be symmetrical in its composition and will offer panoramic views of the WTC site. The inner core wall of the lobby is clad in polished black granite to mirror the Memorial inside and is rotated to realign the geometry of the space so that it is parallel to the park. The walls of the elevator banks are finished in fused oak and glass panels to echo the oak trees lining the Memorial Park.
On the tower's Church Street side there will be a 75–foot atrium that will offer up a dynamic new urban experience, amalgamating the transit hall of the new WTC Transportation Hub with the WTC's retail elements to form a single, identifiable whole featuring multiple floors cascading to the street, enlivening the area and becoming a symbolic feature of a revitalized WTC. The atrium space will weaves its way into the base of the tower to provide retail space and perhaps a restaurant that faces the memorial park.
The four corners of the building site lie at varying topographical elevations, resulting in a 12–foot difference from the high point on the corner of Church and Cortlandt Streets to the lowest point on the corner of Greenwich and Liberty Streets, diagonally across the site. As a result, the street fronts of the building at ground level on all four sides will be on an incline, and the interior levels all will need to mitigate the differences to achieve comfortable entry points as well as harmonious spatial relationships with the surrounding pedestrian environment.
The podium of the building, from floors 1 to 3, will be designed to respond to character inherent in each of the streets and to further enrich the pedestrian experience. The building will be set back from all corners, creating an expanded public area along the sidewalk in the form of a small entry plaza. Each corner will provide either an entrance to the office lobby or access to retail and the transit hall.
3 World Trade Centre
Designed by Richard Rogers, 3 World Trade Center at 175 Greenwich Street will rise 1,170 ft feet above street level. The 80-story building will include 2.8 million square feet of office space spread across 53 floors and five trading floors.The tower will consist of a central concrete core - steel encased in reinforced concrete — and be clad in an external structural steel frame. Safety systems are planned to exceed New York City building code and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey requirements. Designed to the highest energy efficiency ratings, 3 World Trade Center will seek to achieve the gold standard under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) by the U.S. Green Building Council.
Designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, 175 Greenwich Street will sit at the center of the various buildings around the WTC Memorial site, across Greenwich Street from the main axis formed by the memorial's two reflecting pools. The tower was designed to address this central position, its verticality accentuated relative to the memorial site. As suggested in the WTC Master Plan, the tower will be recognizable in the skyline, reaching higher than the adjacent and smaller building at 150 Greenwich Street and featuring a unique stepped profile and antennae.
The design employs a structural load-sharing system of diamond-shaped bracing, which helps to articulate the building's east-west configuration. All corners of the tower are column free to ensure that occupiers of the office levels have unimpeded 360-degree panoramic views of New York.175 Greenwich Street offers a strong interface with the public realm along Cortlandt and Dey Streets, both of which will be redeveloped into pedestrian areas. This, in turn, will improve the accessibility of the retail space in the building, as well as help to integrate it more completely with the WTC Transportation Hub to the north of Dey Street.
2 World Trade Centre
2 World Trade Center at 200 Greenwich Street, features a sparkling glazed crystalline form and diamond-shaped summit that will create a bold addition to the New York skyline. Designed by Foster and Partners, the 88-story tower will be the second-tallest skyscraper on the World Trade Center site and in New York City. Located east of the proposed performing arts center and north of the WTC Transportation Hub, 2 WTC will rise to 1,349 feet.The tower will contain five levels of retail; four trading floors; 60 office floors, including a sky lobby, that total 3.1 million rentable square feet; and a 67-foot-high office lobby. It will have a total of eight entrances: five entrances from street level, one below-grade entrances from the WTC Transportation Hub, and two from the retail area.
The first office floor begins at 278 feet above street level. A typical office area will vary in size from 41,000 to 45,000 rentable square feet of space. Trading floors will be 65,000 square feet.
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| Tower Section |
The tower will consist of a central concrete core - steel encased in reinforced concrete - and an external structural steel frame. Safety systems will exceed New York City building code and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey requirements. Designed to the highest energy efficiency ratings, 200 Greenwich Street will seek to achieve the Gold standard under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) by the U.S. Green Building CouncilThe tower will consist of a central concrete core - steel encased in reinforced concrete - and an external structural steel frame. Safety systems will exceed New York City building code and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey requirements. Designed to the highest energy efficiency ratings, 200 Greenwich Street will seek to achieve the Gold standard under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) by the U.S. Green Building Council.
Arranged around a central cruciform core, the tower will be comprised of four blocks containing light-filled, flexible, column-free office floors that rise to the 59th floor, whereupon the glass façades will be sheared off at an angle to address the WTC Memorial Park. Giving the building its distinctive inclined summit as the second tower in the WTC Master Plan, 200 Greenwich Street's diamond crown also will act as a symbolic marker of the location of the memorial park when viewed from any location. The upper floors contained within the summit will provide sweeping views of the park, the river, and the city.
A continuation of Foster and Partners' investigation into the nature of the high-rise tower, 200 Greenwich Street will take structural, functional, security, environmental, and urban logic to a new dimension. The tower will be influenced by the geometry of the site, with the cruciform core providing the structural backbone as well as the key organizing diagram. It will accommodate the primary vertical circulation, with high-speed shuttle elevators rising to an intermediate sky lobby where the upper floors will be served by two further banks of elevators. It also will allow for cross-corridor circulation by providing excellent orientation at every level and opening views out across the office spaces.
Extending the logic of the core, the volume of the tower will be punctuated on all four sides by notches - elegantly breaking up the mass of the tower into four interconnected blocks. Toward the perimeter, the core will culminate in dedicated flexible zones that provide an opportunity to create staircases between floors and the possibility for double-height atria.
Connections with the city at street level will be reinforced with glass walls creating a visual relationship with the surrounding streets. The imposing double-height ground floor lobby will be connected at the Greenwich Street entrance to the subway, providing direct access to the underground infrastructure system. The lobby will rise in level along Vesey Street and includes a further connection with the transport system via escalators and a four-story shopping area connecting with Fulton Street and spilling out onto the Wedge of Light plaza.
Arranged around a central cruciform core, the tower will be comprised of four blocks containing light-filled, flexible, column-free office floors that rise to the 59th floor, whereupon the glass façades will be sheared off at an angle to address the WTC Memorial Park. Giving the building its distinctive inclined summit as the second tower in the WTC Master Plan, 200 Greenwich Street's diamond crown also will act as a symbolic marker of the location of the memorial park when viewed from any location. The upper floors contained within the summit will provide sweeping views of the park, the river, and the city.
A continuation of Foster and Partners' investigation into the nature of the high-rise tower, 200 Greenwich Street will take structural, functional, security, environmental, and urban logic to a new dimension. The tower will be influenced by the geometry of the site, with the cruciform core providing the structural backbone as well as the key organizing diagram. It will accommodate the primary vertical circulation, with high-speed shuttle elevators rising to an intermediate sky lobby where the upper floors will be served by two further banks of elevators. It also will allow for cross-corridor circulation by providing excellent orientation at every level and opening views out across the office spaces.
Extending the logic of the core, the volume of the tower will be punctuated on all four sides by notches - elegantly breaking up the mass of the tower into four interconnected blocks. Toward the perimeter, the core will culminate in dedicated flexible zones that provide an opportunity to create staircases between floors and the possibility for double-height atria.
Connections with the city at street level will be reinforced with glass walls creating a visual relationship with the surrounding streets. The imposing double-height ground floor lobby will be connected at the Greenwich Street entrance to the subway, providing direct access to the underground infrastructure system. The lobby will rise in level along Vesey Street and includes a further connection with the transport system via escalators and a four-story shopping area connecting with Fulton Street and spilling out onto the Wedge of Light plaza.
International Commerce Centre
| Status | Complete |
|---|---|
| Type | Hotel, observation, office, parking garage, retail |
| Location | Hong Kong |
| Construction started | 2002 |
|---|---|
| Completed | 2010 |
| Roof | 484.0 m (1,587.9 ft) |
|---|---|
| Top floor | 476.0 m (1,561.7 ft) |
| Floor count | 118 |
|---|---|
| Floor area | 262,176 m2 (2,822,039 sq ft) |
| Elevator count |
|
The International Commerce Centre ( ICC Tower) is a 118 floor, 484 m (1,588 ft) skyscraper completed in 2010 in West Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is a part of the Union Square project built on top of Kowloon Station. The development is owned and jointly developed by MTR Corporation Limited and Sun Hung Kai Properties, Hong Kong's metro operator and largest property developer respectively. It is currently the world's fourth tallest building as well as the tallest building in Hong Kong.
The height has been scaled back from earlier plans due to regulations that didn't allow buildings to be taller than the surrounding mountains. The original proposal for this building was called Kowloon Station Phase 7 and it was designed to be 574 m (1,883 ft) tall with 102 floors. It would have risen 162 m (531 ft) over the then current tallest in Hong Kong, 2 International Finance Centre.A five-star hotel operated by Ritz-Carlton currently occupies floors 102 to 118. The world's highest swimming pool and bar (OZONE) can be found on the top floor. The 2,800 m2/30,000 sq ft Presidential Suite, which costs 100,000 HKD per night, is on the 107th floor. The hotel's arrival lobby is on the 9th floor where guest are greeted by receptionists and taken to express elevators. The express elevators take guests 425 m (1,394 ft) above the ground in 50 seconds to the main lobby on the 103rd floor. Guest keycards are required to use the hotel elevators to access the hotel rooms on floors 104-107. The hotel is targeting a 60% occupancy rate.
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| Office lobby |
At its basement is the Elements shopping mall, which opened in October 2007. Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse moved into ICC and occupy 16 and 12 floors respectively, Deutsche Bank occupies 12 floors with the option to expand to 18 floors.
Construction work was temporarily halted on 13 September 2009 due to an elevator shaft accident which killed six workers.
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| Lobby lift |
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| Acess way to Elements Shopping Mall |
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Bank of China Building
| Status | Complete |
|---|---|
| Type | Office |
| Location |  Hong Kong |
| Construction started | 18 April 1985 |
|---|---|
| Completed | 1990 |
| Opening | 17 May 199 |
| Antenna spire | 367.4 m (1,205.4 ft) |
|---|---|
| Roof | 315.0 m (1,033.5 ft) |
| Top floor | 288.2 m (945.5 ft) |
| Floor count | 72 above ground 4 basement floors |
|---|---|
| Floor area | 135,000 m2 (1,450,000 sq ft) |
| Elevator count | 45, made |
| Architect | I. M. Pei & Partners, Sherman Kung & Associates Architects Ltd. Thomas Boada S.L. |
|---|
Designed by I. M. Pei, the building is 307 m (1,007.2 ft) high with two masts reaching 360.9 m (1,184.1 ft) high. It was the tallest building in Hong Kong and Asia from 1989 to 1992, and it was the first building outside the United States to break the 305 m (1,000 ft) mark. It is now the fourth tallest skyscraper in Hong Kong, after International Commerce Centre, Two International Finance Centre and Central Plaza.
Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect I. M. Pei, the building is 305.0 metres (1,000.7 ft) high with two masts reaching 357.4 metres (1,205.4 ft) high. The 72-storey building is located near Central MTR station. This was the tallest building in Hong Kong and Asia from 1989 to 1992, the first building outside the United States to break the 305 m (1,000 ft) mark, and the first composite space frame high-rise building. That also means it was the tallest outside the United States from its completion year, 1990. It is now the fourth tallest skyscraper in Hong Kong, after International Commerce Centre, Two International Finance Centre and Central Plaza.
    The structural expressionism adopted in the design of this building resembles growing bamboo shoots, symbolising livelihood and prosperity. The whole structure is supported by the five steel columns at the corners of the building, with the triangular frameworks transferring the weight of the structure onto these five columns. It is covered with glass curtain walls. While its distinctive look makes it one of Hong Kong's most identifiable landmarks today, it was the source of some controversy at one time, as the bank is the only major building in Hong Kong to have bypassed the convention of consulting with feng shui masters on matters of design prior to construction. The building has been criticised by some practitioners of feng shui for its sharp edges and its negative symbolism by the numerous 'X' shapes in its original design, though Pei modified the design to some degree before construction following this feedback. The building's profile from some angles resembles that of a meat cleaver. In Feng Shui, this is described as a cleaver building and it is not difficult to observe that it is facing the HSBC Hong Kong headquarters building in this guise. |
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
One World Trade Centre Design
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| Lobby |
One World Trade Center's program includes 2,600,000 square feet (242,000 m2) of office space, as well as an observation deck, parking and broadcast and antenna facilities, all supported by both above and below-ground mechanical infrastructure for the building and its adjacent public spaces. Below-ground tenant parking and storage, shopping and access to the Path and subway trains and the World Financial Center are also provided.
A 65-foot (20 m) high public lobby, topped by a series of mechanical floors, form a 200-foot (61 m)-per-side visual cubic base to the tower. The next 69 floors, providing tenant office space, rise above the base to an elevation of 1,150 feet (350 m). Mechanical and observation floors culminate in a rooftop observation deck at 1,362 feet (415 m) with a glass parapet extending to 1,368 feet (417 m) - the heights of the original Twin Towers. A shrouded antenna structure supported by cables, engineered by Schlaich Bergermann & Partner, rises to a total height of 1,776 feet (541 m), which is a tribute to the year the United States Declaration of Indendence was signed. A plan to build a restaurant near the top of the tower was abandoned as logistically too difficult. |
| Base |
The 200-foot (61 m) sides at the square footprint of the base are almost as wide as the 208-foot (63 m) square of the original Twin Towers. The base was to be clad in more than 2,000 pieces of prismatic glass designed to draw upon the themes of motion and light. This proved unworkable, however, and a simpler glass facade is planned for the base. Cable-net glass facades on all four sides of the building, designed by Schlaich Bergermann, will be consistent with the other buildings in the complex. They measure 60 feet (18 m) high and range in width from 30 feet (9.1 m) on the east and west sides (for access to the observation deck) to 50 feet (15 m) on the north side and 70 feet (21 m) on the south for primary tenant access.
As the tower itself rises from this cubic base, its square edges are chamfered back, transforming the square into eight tall isosceles triangles in elevation, or an elongated square antiprism. At its middle, the tower forms a perfect octagon in plan and then culminates in a glass parapet (elevation 1,362 feet (415 m) and 1,368 feet (417 m) whose plan is a square, rotated 45 degrees from the base. A mast containing the antenna for television broadcasters — designed by a collaboration among SOM, artist Kenneth Snelson (who invented the tensegrity structure), lighting designers and engineers - is secured by a system of cables, and rises from a circular support ring, similar to the Statue of Liberty's torch, to a height of 1,776 feet (541 m). Above the mast will be an intense beam of light that will be lit at night and will likely be visible over 1,000 feet (300 m) into the air above the tower. |
| Floor Plan |
New safety features will include 3 feet (91 cm) thick reinforced concrete walls for all stairwells, elevator shafts, risers, and sprinkler systems; extremely wide "emergency stairs"; a dedicated set of stairwells exclusively for the use of firefighters; and biological and chemical filters throughout its ventilation system. The building will no longer be 25 feet (8 m) away from West Street, as the Twin Towers were—at its closest point, West Street will be 65 feet (20 m) away. The windows on the side of the building facing in this direction will be equipped with specially tempered blast-resistant plastic, which will look nearly the same as the glass used in the other sides of the building. The seventy elevators and 9 escalators for 1 World Trade Center will be provided by ThyssenKrupp, with steel counterweights supplied by Concord Steel. The Port Authority has stated: "Its structure is designed around a strong, redundant steel moment frame consisting of beams and columns connected by a combination of welding and bolting. Paired with a concrete-core shear wall, the moment frame lends substantial rigidity and redundancy to the overall building structure while providing column-free interior spans for maximum flexibility."
"Ultra-clear", low-iron glass for the 185-foot (56 m) concrete base is being supplied by PPG Industries and manufactured in its Carlisle, Pennsylvania plant. The curtain wall for the higher floors is being manufactured and assembled in Portland, Oregon by Benson Industries using glass made in Minnesota by Viracon. 1 World Trade Center will be green in several ways. Although the roof area of any tower is comparatively limited, the building will implement a rainwater collection and recycling scheme for its cooling systems. The building's fuel cell will generate 4.8 million watts (MW), and waste steam will help generate electricity. One World Trade Center is expected to receive a Gold Certification by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Like all of the new facilities at the World Trade Center site, One World Trade Center will be heated by steam, with limited oil or natural gas utilities located on site.
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| West Plaza |
Close to the building are the below-ground memorials featuring two glass reflecting pools. These pools are approximately 30 feet (9.1 m) below the surface, and are located on the exact locations of the former Twin Towers. The pools are intended to fill out the "footprint" of the towers, each being equal to the exact perimeter of the North and South Tower, respectively. Trees surround the area containing the pools, and the area is intended to be a contemplative and quiet area separated from the city. The names of the nearly 3,000 victims of the attacks on September 11, 2001 and 1993 World Trade Center Bombing will be inscribed in bronze and placed around each pool. Under the pools, there will be a museum of the World Trade Center attacks, called the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. The memorial is scheduled to be completed by September 11, 2011, the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center.
The roof (including a 33 ft 4 in (10.16 m) parapet) of the top floor of One World Trade Center will be 1,368 feet (417 m), the same as the original One World Trade Center. With its spire height (the criteria of two categories of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat), One World Trade Center will stand at 1,776 feet (541 m), a figure symbolic of the year of the United States Declaration of Independence.
With a structural height of 1,776 feet (541 m), One World Trade Center will surpass the 1,671 feet (509 m) height of Taipei 101 to become the world's tallest all-office building and the tallest building in the Americas,
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| One World Trade Centre Model |
surpassing the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower) in Chicago. However, its roof height will still be 83 feet (25 m) shorter than the Willis Tower and it will not surpass the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. When completed, One World Trade Center will be the third tallest building in the world, behind the Burj Khalifa and the Mecca Royal Hotel Clock Tower.
The Chicago Spire (with a planned height of 2,000 feet (610 m) was expected to exceed the height of One World Trade Center, but its construction was cancelled in 2009 due to financial difficulties.The World Trade Center's South Tower had an outdoor rooftop observation deck at 1,380 feet (420 m) and another indoor observation deck at 1,310 feet (400 m). One World Trade Center's indoor observation deck will be at a height of approx 1,313 feet (400 m).
One World Trade Center will have a top floor denoted as 82. The first office floor of the building atop the 200-foot (61 m) square base will be designated as Floor 20 and the building will have 74 usable above-ground floors. Sixty-nine floors will be designated as office floors, and an observation deck will be at Floor 79. Additionally, roughly 55,000 square feet (5,100 m2) of retail space will exist below-grade, part of an overall 500,000 square feet (46,000 m2) of retail space to be spread throughout the site both in the below-grade concourses and on the lower floors of Towers 2, 3, and 4.
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| Inside One World Trade Centre |
One World Trade Centre Safety Features
Steel Fire Proofing - twice as thick, ten times adhesive than code requires
Stairwells - 20% wider than code requires, extra-wide pressurized stairs
Core - three foot {steel} reinforced concrete walls. All of the building's life-safety systems - egress stairs, communication antennae, exhaust and ventilation shafts, electrical risers, standpipes, and elevators - will be encased in a core wall that will be three feet thick in most places.
Emergency
Smoke Filtration System
Fire Command Stations - two, one in lobby
Internal Repeater System - for emergency radios. In emergency the building becomes an anntenna 1/3 of a mile radius
Air Supply System biological and chemical filters
WTC.com Safety
Stairwells - 20% wider than code requires, extra-wide pressurized stairs
Core - three foot {steel} reinforced concrete walls. All of the building's life-safety systems - egress stairs, communication antennae, exhaust and ventilation shafts, electrical risers, standpipes, and elevators - will be encased in a core wall that will be three feet thick in most places.
Emergency
- Lighting - Generator powered and Battery power
- Exits - light and sign system to point the way to safe exit. two stairwell become four at the bottom of building. Additional stair exit locations at all adjacent streets, and direct exits to the street from tower stairs
- Stairwells - total of four stairwells, 2 occupant, 1 emergency stairwell and 1 maintenance
- Sprinklers and Emergency Riser - concrete protection
Smoke Filtration System
Fire Command Stations - two, one in lobby
Internal Repeater System - for emergency radios. In emergency the building becomes an anntenna 1/3 of a mile radius
Air Supply System biological and chemical filters
WTC.com Safety
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