Tneme-News
NEW YORK, NEW YORK ONWARD AND
UPWARD
In Delirious New York: A Retroactive manifesto for
Manhattan, architect and author Rem Koolhaas depicts the
city of 8.2 million people as “a mythical laboratory for the
invention and testing of a revolutionary lifestyle: the culture
of congestion.” In Manhattan, the simultaneous explosion of
human density and the union of the elevator and steel frame
has produced an island of towers, which American writer,
essayist and dramatist Kurt Vonnegut christened, “Skyscraper
National Park.”
The city’s most famous iconic tower, the 102-story Empire
State building, opened in 1931 and retained its title as the
tallest building in the world until 1972 with the construction
of the World Trade Center Towers. Approximately 35,000
people view New York City each day from the building’s
towers on the 86th and 102nd floors while more than 21,000
employees occupy its 2,768,591 square feet of floor space.
In 2001, the American Society of Civil Engineers named
The Empire State Building to its list of “Monuments of the
Millennium.”
Twenty years after The Empire State Building opened,
construction was underway on New York’s first all-glass
International Style office building – the Lever House. “The
Glass House, as the press called the building – so different
from the sooty brick and limestone ziggurats of New York’s
previous architectural generations – became an instant
icon,” reported Matt Tyrnauer in an article for Vanity Fair
magazine. “Aesthetically, it appears to be fragile and stable
in equal measure,” Tyrnauer noted. “The sense of fragility
comes from the ‘enveloping’ of the building’s steel frame in
glass; the outer columns are set back a little from the outer
walls, allow a smooth, uninterrupted machine-made surface
to dominate visually.”
Over the decades, new generations of New York skyscrapers
have evolved. “Skyscrapers today are huge – bulky more than
high – and yet they seem lighter than ever, in part because
their shapes are so elusive,” according to Paul Goldberger,
Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for The New Yorker
magazine. “The post-iconic skyscraper – the skyscraper that
isn’t so much a thing as a collection of things – isn’t easy
to love. But it does evoke a curiously traditional idea, one
worth holding on to, which is that the concept of the city
is more important than an individual building. Towers want
to be alone. The new, post-iconic skyscraper loves crowds.”
Increasingly, Manhattan office towers like 11 Times Square
are being designed to achieve Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the
U.S. Green Building Council. “These days, some stab at
sustainability is virtually required,” observed Norval White,
co-author of the 2010 edition of AIA Guide to New York.
“Sustainability is rapidly becoming synonymous with good
design, and it even seems to be evolving into an aesthetic –
call it Green Sleek.” The 1,055-page AIA Guide is sponsored
by the New York Chapter of the American Institute of
Architects.
Continued on back.
The last decade has also seen an explosion in alteration and
restoration of existing office structures. In 2009, alterations
and renovations accounted for $1.7 billion of the $2.6 billion
spent on office construction projects, according to the New
York Building Congress (NYBC).
Given the challenges and high cost of renovation in New
York’s highly congested business district, it’s understandable
why architects specify long-lasting materials such as
advanced fluoropolymer coating systems that are capable of
an ultra-durable finish. During the exterior renovation of the
30-story headquarters building for Verizon Communications
in Manhattan (Hoffmann Architects), a two-coat system
from Tnemec was used on more than 30,000 square feet of
anodized aluminum louvers. Since labor was a considerable
part of the overall cost to paint the building, the architects
wanted a coating system that offered long-term protection
against weathering and ultraviolet (UV) light. Using a primer
coat of Series 27 F.C. Typoxy, a polyamide epoxy, and a
topcoat of Series 1072 Fluoronar, a high-solids fluoropolymer,
the result surpassed the aesthetic performance of even the
best polyurethane coating system.
As for the future of tall building design and construction,
Deborah Snoonian, P.E., of Architectural Record,
acknowledged, “…the sustainability movement in the U.S.
has gone large-scale and skyward, and nowhere is this
more apparent than in New York City.” Notable sustainable
projects cited by Snoonian include:
• The New York Times Tower (FXFOWLE Architects)
featuring a solar screen of ceramic rods, automated skylights,
onsite cogeneration, high-tech lighting and shading system.
The antenna mast is coated with Tnemec’s Series 27 F.C.
Typoxy and Series 1070 Fluoronar over abrasive blasted
galvanized steel.
• One Bryant Park (Adamson Associates Architects)
where rainwater will be collected and reused for toilet
flushing and are held in cooling towers. Several energysaving technologies are also featured including an onsite
cogeneration system, geothermal heating and cooling and
building-integrated photovoltaics. All of the water tanks that
contain grey water, cooling tower water and potable water
are lined with Tnemec’s Series V69 Hi-Build Epoxoline II,
Series 63-1500 Filler and Surfacer, and Series 264 ElastoShield.
• Hearst Tower with its advanced HVAC and rainwater
collection systems. The architecturally exposed steel is
coated with several Tnemec systems.
• The Helena, a 580-uni tower, featuring a green roof and
a gray-water recycling system.
Originally included in the July 2010 E-News.
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