1 World Trade Center, New York

Published: 05-Jun-2009

1 World Trade Center, formerly known as the Freedom Tower, is the main building of the WTC complex that is coming up in Lower Manhattan. The tower is located to the northwest of the 16-acre site surrounded by the Fulton, Washington, West and Vessey streets. It is being built on the very same site on which the twin towers of the WTC once stood.

Key Data

Architect: Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) LLP

Master Plan Architect: Studio Daniel Libeskind

General Contractor: Tishman Construction Corporation

Developer: Silverstein Properties, Inc

Wind Surveyor: Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin, Inc

Construction start date: 2006

Scheduled completion: 2012s

Approximate cost: $3.1 billion

Project Description

Construction on the project began in 2006; a full four years after the plans for a memorial to the twin-towers were first discussed. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation organized a competition to determine the shape of the memorial in 2002 after which the design by Daniel Libeskind was chosen. After some minor modifications pressed for by the site lease-holder Larry Silverstein, the drawings were eventually accepted.

It however took another four years before a final design was unveiled in June 2006, with construction work starting immediately thereafter. The first steel columns were erected at the foundation in December of that year with a promise that the topping out would take place in 2011 and the building would be ready for occupancy in 2013.

The building comprises approximately 3.5 million square feet of which 2.6 million would be occupied by various offices. The street-level lobbies would contain entrance to the offices and the public areas like the observation decks and restaurants. The designs allow for the grades to directly connect with 15 subway lines and training hubs for the New Jersey lines.

The Freedom Tower has certain unique design features that serve as a memorial to the twin towers. An 80-foot public lobby followed by a series of mechanical floors forms the 200-feet building base.  The 69 floors thereafter form the tenant area after which the designers have an observation deck and restaurants at a height of 1,362-feet and 1,368 feet respectively – the heights of the twin towers. An antenna structure rises from this point to a height of 1,776 feet, the figure symbolizing the year of the declaration of US Independence.

The tower rising out of the cubic base gets transformed into an elongated square anti-prism, at the center of which it forms a perfect octagon before culminating into a glass parapet. In addition, the builders have incorporated safety features that includes three-foot thick wall for stairwells and elevator shafts. The builders have also provided for extra-wide emergency stairs, a dedicated stairway for firefighters and chemical filters on the ventilation system.

Another unique feature of the building is the manner in which the floors are numbered. Though there are a total of 82 floors, the top-most is numbered as 102. This is a result of the tall base of the building that resulted in the first office floor being designated as floor 20. Sixty-nine more floors follow and end on floor 88 with the next two floors housing the broadcasting space. Three stories of mechanical space follow the space and culminate in restaurants on floors 100 and 101. The final floor would be devoted exclusively to the observatory after which six additional mechanical floors take the total floors to 108.

The builders are using ultra-low-iron glass with stainless steel finishing around the corners, a throwback to the twin towers which used to reflect the setting sun and glow during the evening hours. The lower base of the building would have prism glass encircling the 20-storey base. Illuminated stainless steel steps on the west plaza would provide a transition between the main building and the plaza.

In January 2008, the first of two construction cranes appeared on the site and by year end the builders had raised the concrete core from four inches below ground level to nearly 14 feet above it.  Earlier this year, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the planning body for the project, showed images of the building rising about 105 feet above the street level.

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