4 Times Square – New York City

 "When we started planning Four Times Square, there was never any question that the building would be ecologically responsible. But this decision really took us to a different level, we had to apply our knowledge to new construction and push the learning curve considerably further." -- Douglas Durst, President, Durst Organization

This new $500 million office tower is located in the heart of Manhattan's most famous commercial district and has 48 stories with 1.6 million total square feet. It is one of the first skyscrapers to embrace high standards for energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and sustainable materials use as well as responsible construction, operations and maintenance procedures. Tenants are encouraged to participate as responsible residents of this unique building and are provided with a library of green information and environmental guidelines. Operational costs are expected to be 10-15% lower than a comparable project. More than one-third of the structure is made from re-used materials. Douglas Durst, president of the development company behind the project calls Four Times Square "a shining example for the commercial real estate community." (Source: Daniel Kaplan, Fox & Fowle Architects and Douglas Durst, Durst Organization).

The green features for the tower have cost up to $15m, but the owners hope to eventually recoup the expense from lower fuel bills. The Times Square project is one of more than 8,500 projects that have been supported by grants from the US Department of Energy's State Energy Program. The New York State Energy Research & Development Authority administered the grant on behalf of the DoE. Therefore we can expect that the new US policies are ensuring that sustainable towers will be commonplace throughout the country in the years to come.

The building designers aimed to maximise daylight; install energy-efficient, low-emission, CFC-free chillers for the HVAC system; use fuel cells and photovoltaic cells to generate 3500 megawatt hours of electricity on site per year; and provide superior indoor air quality in the office spaces. Their biggest constraints were the economic factors and the contractual requirement to allow tenants to determine how their interior spaces would be designed. The architects found that the hard economic analyses from DoE-2 runs were critical in gaining the tenants' favour for energy-efficiency measures by showing their financial benefits.

Since 1996, NYSERDA has used $305,000 in DoE funding to provide assistance for projects valued at over $1 billion. Their studies show that if NYSERDA recommendations are implemented, the energy efficiency of these buildings will exceed the requirements of the New York State Energy Code by an average of 34% with an increase of less than 1% in construction cost and a simple payback of 3.5 years. Overall state energy offices have leveraged $4 in non-federal fund for each dollar of federal funding, generating dramatic improvements in energy efficiency as well as economic and environmental benefits since the program's inception in 1976.  (Source: www.eren.doe.gov)

LA Courthouse – Los Angeles

The 1,000,000 sq. ft. project has an estimated construction cost of $300 million dollars (£209 m) and is being financed and managed by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). Battle McCarthy intends to make the new Courthouse a landmark self-sustainable building through the following design initiatives: 

• Building orientated and shaped to provide a solar power generator on south wall

• Public spaces positioned on warm south side whilst cooler north side is landscaped and utilised for cool air intake and pollution filtering

• A buried labyrinth and vertical earth tube will provide free cooling for most of the year

• Any additional cooling will be provided by desiccant systems implying no refrigeration on site

• Large central atrium used to provide natural ventilation and daylight to courtrooms and public spaces

• All courtrooms designed to be daylit from two sides - the daylight will be controllable and glare free

• A PLATINUM LEED rating is expected - executive orders 13101 and 13123 call for a minimum energy reduction of 35% and reductions in water consumption. These will be met as a minimum standard

• Potable water demands reduced through on site water collection, storage and recycling

NY Times Building – New York

The main feature of Renzo Piano's design for the New York Times building (done in collaboration with Bruce Fowle of Fox & Fowle Architects) is a double skin façade based around an 800-foot curtain wall. "There is a wall that is glass and in front of it we fly another layer that is like a "suncoat"--not a raincoat," Mr. Piano says of the tower that scheduled for completion in 2006. 

This double skin is made of extruded white ceramic tubes carried on an aluminium frame. It will protect the glass walls from the direct sunlight and heat gain would usually prompt the over use of energy-intensive air conditioning. The irregularly spaced horizontal rods bounce daylight up to the ceilings to maximise natural daylighting. Partitions will not be as high as the ceilings to allow interior offices to receive some of this daylight. The rods will be arranged so as not to prohibit access to an open view of the city by those inside the building.

The scheme will fill the block from 40th to 41st Streets where the 52-story tower is built in front of a lower four-story building, which contains a garden that is open to the sky and a 350-seat auditorium on the ground floor  

The designs are meant to create comfort for the inhabitants whilst also enhancing a mood of transparency and light for the employees of the NY Times. "The story I hope the building will tell is not one of arrogance, of power," Mr. Piano says. "Quite often towers are not liked, and I hope the story this will tell is one of lightness." Lightness--the suggestion of flight--would also be a sartorial switch for Eighth Avenue and 41st Street, the site of the building: the seedy area has always been better known for the blacked-out windows of peep shows than for gleaming, transparent facades.[1]

Ultima tower - Eugene Tsui

The Ultima tower is designed to be two-miles high and one mile wide in an attempt to provide a solution to counteract the uncontrolled development that is currently destroying the natural environment. The idea is to bring nature upward to preserve the surrounding ecology and to provide a natural ecosystem in a controlled environment. The concept will condense the areas of living, working, commerce and industry into an vertical structure.

While the designers were conducting a study of the sustainability of the San Francisco Bay area, they recognised a need to preserve the last remaining ecosystems. Transportation demands were growing daily and suburban sprawl was increasing. The Ultima tower design was the result. 

The design is a trumpet bell-shape and uses a structural form that could be compared to turning a suspension cable bridge on its end. It is considered to be the most stable and aerodynamic shape for a tall structure. Unlike other tall structures, the thicknesses of the walls of the upper level are the same as the walls of the lower level. The exterior facades are made of structural glass that conforms to the criss-crossing, double helix, cable strand tension system that diffuses forces across the surface. Wind or earthquake shock waves in one portion of the structure will be absorbed by another portion to dissipate the forces.   

There are 120 levels each with great heights. These levels cannot be considered floors but must be seen as landscaped neighbourhood districts with "skies" that are 30 to 50 meters high. Lakes, streams, rivers, hills and ravines comprise the soil landscape on which residential, office, commercial, retail and entertainment buildings can be built. To get an idea of the scale of this building, the entire central district of Beijing could fit into the base.

The structure will act as a living organism with systems that will convert wind and atmospheric conditions into energy. Photovoltaic exterior sheathing, and opening/closing cowl-vent windows will allow natural air into the interior without depending on mechanical intervention. Natural daylighting is brought into the structure by means of a hollow, mirrored core that reflects sunlight and disperses it throughout the structure.  

The tower sits in a natural setting in a large lake and this water is drawn up throughout the structure and used for cooling floors and walls. Some of this water is heated by large passive solar panels and then falls down to be used by the various lower levels.  

No internal combustion engines or toxic pollutants will be used within the structure. Energy sources will include hydrogen gas, electricity or water-power and all heating and plants and trees regulate cooling. The designs also include easy and quick vertical and lateral transportation. The building will be fireproofed and waterproof for ultimate safety and maintenance. 

Efficiency will be obligatory and this will be reflected by the various sustainable principles throughout the structure. This would include recycled building materials, compost toilets and natural water cleansing systems as well as an abundant amount of forest, plant life and water-based ecosystems.  

Construction materials include: high-strength steel, high-strength concrete, stainless steel, anodised aluminium, acrylic, patina copper, stainless steel cable, self-shading glass, composite ceramics, tempered glass.

Special features include: Atmospheric Thermal Energy Conversion power supplies, built-in windmills, photovoltaic solar cells, hydrogen gas power supplies, self-regulating/self-shading glass, twelve storey-vertical high-speed train system, non-mechanical heating/ventilation and air conditioning system, ground level waterfalls for air cooling and humidity control and open garden areas on each floor. 

(Source: http://www.tdrinc.com/ultima.html)

The Hyper building - Paolo Soleri

The Hyper Building is a design for a one kilometre-high super-tower that is surrounded by a double set of concentric exedrae. The exedra is a semi-circular edifice that can host a large spectrum of urban activities. Paolo Soleri is one of the first Architects to consciously design a tower based on the analogy of the male phallus whilst the concentric exedrae represent the female womb. He envisions that the meeting of the two elements will generate the creative life and complexity of the city.  

The design is situated along a north-south axis to reap the benefits of the sun and its daily and seasonal cycles.

The skins of the tower change from transparent to opaque membranes according to the seasons. Other exedrae will create spaces between the interior and the outdoors, which will moderate the temperature, light, wind, and rain. Spring and fall equinox could be moments of ritual when the skins go from transparency to opaque and vice versa. These intelligent skins will also affect the mood of the cityscape when sensations, perceptions and emotions align with seasonal celebrations.  

The Architect accepts the hierarchical nature of society and designed the Hyper Building to reflect this with stratification of social, cultural, economic, philosophical and ethno-racial groups. He proposed that in order to avoid violent conflicts the design must promote knowledge, experience, planning, tolerance, wisdom and wealth. It is accepted that this project is experimental and the designer hopes that the citizens will engage in the experience by being positive and generous.  

The movements within the city are considered on three parallel planes: people, freight and utilities. Transport to and from the city will be via a regional-continental mass transit system with the main terminal on the northeast side of the Hyper Building. There will also be three main "terras" with their construction yards on different levels of the tower. The car is not necessary in this design and the pedestrian has full power in the city, which will be reinforced by the proliferation of elevators, escalators, moving sidewalks, electric conveyances and bicycles. Evacuation of the tower is mainly through the assortment of escalators and emergency slides that exit the tower at the various levels. It is expected that this will empty the tower within a matter of minutes. The heliport on the roof of the tower is also an important facility for evacuation. 

The tower will create a distinct difference between nature and city but nature will always be within walking distance at the base of the tower.  

The compact and complex designs of the Hyper Building utilises an efficiency that is impossible to achieve in the suburban sprawl that now threatens our ecosystem. Paolo Soleri sees this tower as a solution to many of the current global problems. 

Below is a list of factors that the Architect has taken into consideration when coming up with the concept of the Hyper Building:  

 (Source: http://www.arcosanti.org/arcology/hb/hb.html)