Architects Release Revised WTC Tower Design
Excerpt:
""Wind-harvesting turbines to generate 20 percent of the tower's electricity "".
December 19, 2003, 6:23 PM EST
The Freedom Tower unveiled Friday would be among the world's tallest buildings and possibly the safest, but its architect can't guarantee the 1,776-foot Ground Zero landmark would be able to withstand another Sept. 11-type attack.
The twisting, tapered tower design presented to the public at lower Manhattan's Federal Hall is a unique hybrid of skyscraper and sky sculpture, a 70-story office building topped by an open-air lattice of cables and windmills. It is punctuated by a splinter-like spire.
Gov. George Pataki, who has overseen an often acrimonious design process, called the final product "a work of creative genius" that proves "freedom will always triumph over terror."
The building will have a variety of safety features absent from the doomed twin towers, including reinforced stairwells and more exits to make it "the safest building in the world," said David Childs, the project's lead architect.
Yet even with those improvements, Childs said he didn't know if the tower would be strong enough to survive an attack by a fuel-laden airliner, like the 737s that slammed into the Trade Center.
"It's hard to exactly say the level of security we'll have," he said. "We haven't done those analyses yet."
The project could be completed as early as the fall of 2008 at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion. It will be financed entirely by the site's leaseholder, Larry Silverstein, said Charles Gargano, vice-chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site.
Gargano said the Port Authority, whose headquarters were destroyed in the attacks, plans to occupy one-third of building's 2.6 million square feet, providing cash flow from the day the building opens.
Silverstein is locked in a bitter legal battle with insurance companies over payments for the towers. He said the insurers have already guaranteed him enough cash to build the tower but not enough for the four smaller buildings planned in phases over the next decade.
"The money for the Freedom Tower is in the bank," he told reporters.
The final design differs significantly from the proposal by architect Daniel Libeskind, who was chosen in February by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. Gone are Libeskind's jagged, asymmetrical corners and sky-level gardens, replaced by a sleek office tower topped by Childs' gymnasium of windmills and cables.
"I can't think of another building that's really like this one," said Ric Bell, president of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. "It's something different."
Highlights of the building include:
Structural support from two massive concrete supports that run the height of the building and a steel "diagrid" running outside the building, which allows it to maintain a twisted form.
A nest of trusses and cables located above occupied floors that will stabilize the building and create a design that echoes the Brooklyn Bridge.
Wind-harvesting turbines to generate 20 percent of the tower's electricity and to reduce gusts at ground level.
An observation deck and a new space for Windows on the World, the restaurant that used to occupy the top floors of the North Tower.
Extra-wide, reinforced staircases and "areas of refuge" on each floor to allow for speedy escape and rescue operations.
Dedicated stairs and elevators for firefighters, enhanced communication cables for rescue workers and a blast-resistant lobby.
The compromise on the design was brokered by Pataki last week, who mediated an intense, often testy, collaboration between Childs and Libeskind.
Childs, who was hired by Silverstein, is now the lead architect in the project — a fact made abundantly clear by the design materials, which were all printed on letterhead from his firm, Skidmore Owings & Merrill.
Libeskind's team said it is still lobbying to redesign the tower's spire to give it more heft.
"When the politicians and architects and developers have all gone home, I'll still be there making sure that everything that is built on this site is right because it is... Ground Zero," Libeskind said.
The hybrid plan has its critics, including architect Beverly Willis, head of Rebuild Downtown Our Town, a civic group. Willis said she thinks Childs' changes have compromised Libeskind's vision.
"Two-thirds of the building itself is very innovative, but unfortunately the top is a disaster," she said. "There is no design integration between Childs' skeleton, the spire and building itself."
Madeline Wils, chairwoman of Community Board 1 and an LMDC board member said, "It's a handsome design... I like the way that the tower rotates and torques around, and makes it look flexible, which relates to me about this community. I like the latticework. I love the idea of using windmills."
As Libeskind and Childs smiled side-by-side at Federal Hall, a tiff between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Pataki seemed to grow from the governor's appearance with Katie Couric on Friday's "Today" show.
On Thursday, when Bloomberg's staff learned of the governor's planned TV appearance, they complained and were added to the program, only to have the mayor pull out at the last minute.
"We had a community meeting on bias incidents this morning," said Bloomberg spokesman Ed Skyler. "The meeting ran long and we decided that it was more important for him to meet with the community than to appear."
Staff writer Graham Rayman contributed to this story.
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