Construction and Management Plan -The New York Times Building - Case Study Example

CONSTRUCTION AND MANAGEMENT PLAN (The New York Times Building) The New York Times Building is a skyscraper and a magnificent piece of architecture, located at the posh locales between the 40th and 41st streets of the 8th Avenue, on the west side of Midtown Manhattan. Located strategically in the bustling Times Square district, the building is directly accessible from the West Side Highway and 11 Subway lines, thereby giving it a fair advantage of capturing the gaining momentum of the area and capitalizes on the development of the neighboring areas. The building, designed by architect Renzo Piano, the winner of the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 1998, in collaboration with Fox and Fowle architects is a 52 story building. FIRE RATING SYSTEM The number of occupants in a building as high as this one, poses serious threats to their lives and property in case of emergency situations or breakout of fire, hence the management of a mass evacuation process, becomes top priority. Tall buildings today are essentially equipped with superior designs that facilitate progressive evacuation by isolating the affected floor with fire resistant upper floor and such similar core structures. Figure 1.1 Fire Gate – New York Times Building Although fire rescue devices such as sprinklers, fire extinguishers and dry / wet risers are strategically placed in accordance with the building plan, but along with that it also needs a proper evacuation plan in place, complete with a centralized fire alarm and communication system that alerts the occupants of the impending danger by sending localized alarm messages together with directions for evacuation. EXTERNAL CLADDING SYSTEM An external wall cladding system provides superior energy efficiency besides providing great design flexibilities. It consists of such components as an insulation board, adhesive fasteners that attach the insulation board to the substrate, fiberglass reinforcing mesh, a textured finishing coat etc which help in improving energy efficiency levels. The tower measures 748 feet from the street to its roof and has an exterior curtain wall extending to 92 feet higher to 840 feet. Figure 2.1 Figure 2.2 The curtain wall is fully glazed with low-e-glass that helps in maximizing natural light within the building and the ceramic rod screens on the other hand helps in blocking direct sunlight thereby reducing its cooling load. Figure 2.3 BUILDING SERVICES High Speed Advance Dispatch Elevators The taller the building the higher is the waiting time. Longer waiting time during peak hours add to the hassles of the occupants and tenants alike, therefore proper lifts and shafts with high operating capacity is demanded by the occupants. A typical lift system with peak waiting time reduced to as low as 30 seconds would be desirable and hence should be in place. The waiting time could be reduced to a considerable extent by managing the lift operation vertical zoning and by doubling up the lift in a single shaft. Figure 3.1.1 & 3.1.2 The building is replete with a host of such state of the art technologies as the smart elevators which has buttons in the lobby instead of inside the elevator, where the occupant presses the button in the lobby to indicate the desired floor number, and is immediately directed to an elevator by the automated system. The elevator doesn’t have any buttons in it, which is quite a remarkable technology. Figure 3.1.3 Figure 3.1.4 Figure 3.1.5 Stairways Apart from the high speed elevators the building also has several brightly colored stairways, which is quite rare to find these days in skyscrapers, which is again a novel way of saving up on commercial energy. The Lobby Garden The building also hosts a lovely 70 feet square enclosure, elaborately decorated with rare and beautiful moss and birch tress, one can hardly come across anywhere else in New York city. Figure 3.2.1 Lobby garden The Lobby The large and beautifully illuminated lobby at the Times building, encased almost entirely in glass, allows the occupants to glance right through the rows of elevator banks to the beautiful garden overlooking the auditorium. The aesthetically designed lobby gives a refreshing look to the building. Figure 3.2.2 Lobby The Auditorium Figure 3.2.3 Auditorium The New York Times building houses a huge 378 seated wood paneled auditorium adjacent to the garden provides good ambience to the tenants / occupants of the building, with the transparent glass wall behind the stage that gives the tenants a spectacular view of the garden behind. Apart from this, it also houses a 400 seat catering hall called Times Centre, both of which are used by the New York Times to hold their regular Times Talk series and occasionally let it out to the tenants as well as not for profit organizations. Curtain Walls and Daylight Study The New York Times building sports an all glass curtain wall with ceramic sunscreen, a first of its kind feat attempted in the United States. The aim was to bring natural light (sunlight) into the office space in the most innovative way. The concept of day- lighting is a most researched area, whereby attempts have been made to increase the energy savings of such huge buildings and enhancing the workspace environment at the same time. It is the most cost effective way to deal with the increasing expenditure on lighting up the office space, and with the energy consumption in the United States, expected to swell up to 35% between now and 2025 as well as the projected demand for commercial energy expected to grow at an annual rate of 1.6 %, it seems the most economical and logical thing to do. Figure 3.2.4 Curtain wall It is therefore necessary to invest in newer technologies that claim to reduce energy consumption by making an optimum use of the natural resources. With easy access to state of the art automated technologies such as motorized roller shades and day-light controlled dimmable fluorescent lighting systems that claim significant reduction in the money spent on commercial energy by focusing on two largest energy consumption sources in the buildings, namely, lighting and conditioning – both cooling and heating included, it is a wise choice to opt for such other feasible options. Figure 3.2.5 The Retail The building hosts four retail units with spaces allotted to high end shops and restaurants, such as Muji, Dean and Deluca Café, aimed to provide services to the tenants as well as other occupants in the surrounding neighborhood expected to go on floor by this year. Figure 3.3.1 STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT PLAN The project involved two different groups of people, those who would occupy the lower half of the building, which included the newspaper staff and the others who would occupy the upper half, consisting of general and office tenants. Armed with a long term vision, of creating an architectural marvel along with providing the most suitably designed work space to its staff, it collaborated with several top of the line companies in the business, that included, the New York based real estate development firm Forest City Ratner Companies which has first hand knowledge of the local market needs as well as the financial requirements for a viable project, the Renzo Piano Building Workshop which has an experience of creating several cutting edge architecture across the globe under its belt, to handle the design related aspects and Fox & Fowle Architects who had given shape to several beautiful and innovative buildings in the city. The aim was to create a 52-story building that carried an impression of lightness. Also the requirements of the two user groups the tenants and the staff, were to be taken into consideration. The New York Times Company wanted a raised floor that could accommodate wiring distribution and under floor air supply. At the tenant spaces, on the other hand, that extended from the 29 through the 50th floor, a 6 inch raised floor was designed to accommodate floors and core girders. The vertical transportation, too has to be adjusted to accommodate the dual user needs, for which it was necessary to separate the New York Times space from the upper floor traffic, hence 12 passenger cabs were assigned to the lower floors and elevators were terminated at the 29th floor above a mid height mechanical room. Moreover the east-west bracing was also affected by the elevators, so four bracing lines were initially considered to meet the wind drift and comfort requirements, but this too wasn’t easy as the service cabs with reverse facing doors would require crossing one of the four bracing lines, rendering it all the more difficult. As a result, Xbraced bays that could work in tandem with the core were designed, which again brought their own share of architectural and structural challenges. Figure 4.1 X-braced bays The vision behind creating the building was focusing on the designing as well as the constructability and thereby finally creating and completing the project of an acceptable standard. However this too wasn’t an easy task as they faced several challenges while assembling the large, heavy, built up and hot rolled steel members, which considering the size of the building under construction was inevitable. This too was handled quite proactively by the owners and architects, and came up with the idea of commissioning the fabrication with a full size steel joint to illustrate the types and magnitude of misalignments that were typical to projects of such a magnitude. This too helped the owners by giving them a fair idea about the possible complexities involved in the project and the need for application of high standards to deal with it. Lastly, a project that addresses the mixing of interior and exterior steel was likely to face the issues arising out of thermal bridge, condensation, and weather-tightness and to tackle this problem a thorough understanding of these issues were inevitable. Hence beams that penetrated the façade of the New York Times Building had their exposed stubs fireproofed, insulated, and clad up to the intersection with the exterior column. To solve the problem of the thermal conductivity which is much greater along the beam than across the insulation, a thermal gradient was established along the stub, thus avoiding its further condensation. The New York Times Building design provides a great case study that gives a valuable lesson by illustrating the ways in which architectural, environmental, structural, construction, and user issues affect each other in cutting-edge building design. LEGAL ISSUES The New York Times building has been surrounded with several legal issues since its construction began. The New York State Department of Buildings was flooded with complaints from pedestrians of falling glass, ice and vermin falling off from the majestic building following which, in the month of December, the Department finally launched an investigation into the matter. The records at the Department of Buildings in the city bear testimony to the fact that the building has been a source of such random objects falling off it ever since its construction began in the year 2005. 18 of the total 33 complaints lodged with the authorities, are about materials such as screwdrivers, bolts, steel, glass and i-beams raining down from it. Figure 5.1 The above figure is the record of the list of complaints against the building. Figure 5.2 The above figure shows the partial stop work order issued by the Department of Buildings, New York city, which was later on resolved as is evident from the figure below. No evidence of violations was found against the building in 11 of the total 33 complaints lodged against it. Figure 5.3 REFERENCES New York Times Building, Retrieved May 17, 2008 from Thomas Z. Scarangello, P.E.; Leonard M. Joseph, S.E., P.E.; Kyle E. Krall, P.E., A Statement in Steel, Retrieved May 17, 2008 from Department of Buildings, Retrieved May 17, 2008 from New York Times Building, Retrieved May 17, 2008 from Read More