English
New York Times Company New Headquarters
In development
Renzo Piano Building Workshop
Fox & Fowle Architects
New York Times Company New Headquarters
New York, NY
“Each architecture tells a story, and the story this new building proposes to tell is one of lightness and transparency.”
Renzo Piano
The new 52-storey Times Company Headquarters, Renzo Piano’s first major project in New York City, will occupy one of the last sites in the 42nd Street Development Are; a 13-acre district adjoining Times Square designated for redevelopment in the mid-1980s by New York State and City government.
Renzo Piano calls the design for the New Times Company Headquarters, a collaboration with Bruce Fowle of Fox & Fowle Architects, “An Expression of Love” for New York City.
Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects © 2001 Jock Pottle/Esto
Eighth Avenue facade looking northeast
“The preliminary concept for the building incorporates a transparent glass tower that seems to float above a five-story base. The tower uses a double curtain wall technique that will allow the structure to appear vibrant and transparent, yet increase energy efficiency.
At the base of the building, an atrium is surrounded on three sides by floating concrete slabs to create an open urban landscape. This piazza-like space provides an arena for the Times Center, a public amenity devised by the New York Times Company.”
Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects © 2001 Jock Pottle/Esto
Piano took his inspiration from the utility and symmetry of Manhattan’s world-famous rectangular street grid in designing a building with a shape he described as “simple and primary.”
The majority of the double thermal-pane glass curtain wall will be screened by thin horizontal ceramic tubes placed on a steel framework positioned one to two feet in front of the glass; in other places the screen will be made of metal and glass louvers. The irregularly spaced horizontal rods bounce daylight up to the ceilings, tossing it into the tower’s interior.
Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects
On each panel the rods are interrupted at eye level, creating an open viewing space so those inside the building will not be seeing the city behind bars.
In addition to permitting a high-degree of energy efficiency in heating and cooling the building, the ceramic tubes will take on the changing color of the sky during the course of the day as light focuses on it from different angles.
Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects © 2001 Jock Pottle/Esto
The sunscreen starts at the second floor, leaving the first open, transparent and permeable; glass-enclosed retail spaces along the ground floor will allow passers-by to view activity in the lobby and ground-floor-level garden.
The newsroom will occupy occupies floors 2 through 7 overlooking the surrounding streets like a large magic lantern; continually lit and constantly active.
Floors 2 through 4 of the newsroom will overlook the ground-floor garden, the glass walls of which will rise through the center of those floors to the open sky.
A 350-seat auditorium, operated by the Times Company, will also be located on the ground floor level. The wall behind the auditorium stage will be glass, permitting the auditorium audience to view the ground-floor garden.
Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects © 2001 Jock Pottle/Esto
At the top of the building the screen of tubes will become less dense, and its lace-like appearance will permit a view of the roof garden foliage. The curtain wall will continue skyward above the roof to conceal the building’s mechanical elements and maintain the visual flow of the tower.
To increase the sense of interoffice community within the tower, as well as animate its edges, Piano pulled away the sunscreens and placed the staircases, sheathed in transparent panes, at the buildings corners,
Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects
The Times Company will own and occupy some 800,000 gross square feet of space on floors 2 through 28 of the building. The interior open plan, both vertically and horizontally, will ease communication and enhance collaboration.
Partitions will stop shy of the ceilings, set at loft like heights, letting daylight into the interior offices.
Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects © 2001 Jock Pottle/Esto
Ground Floor Plan
The building’s main entrance will be on Eighth Avenue with two additional entrances from 40th and 41st Street. The building will be set back 17 feet along Eighth Avenue and eight feet along 40th and 41st Street in order to facilitate pedestrian circulation.
Image credit:
The New York Times Company / Forest City Ratner Companies / Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Fox & Fowle Architects
View along 40th Street from 8th Avenue to mid-block.
The building will occupy the entire blockfront on the east side of Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st Streets, anchoring the southwest corner of the Times Square area. It will contain some 1.54 million gross square feet of space.
The ground level will have retail space and a garden, with offices going up to the 50th floor. The top two floors will consist of mechanical space and a rooftop conference facility.
A common lobby, ground floor auditorium, the rooftop conference facility, and mechanical and below-grade areas will account for the remaining space in the building.
To develop the building, The New York Times Company and Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) have established a joint venture, with ING Real Estate, a wholly owned subsidiary of the ING Group, as FCRC’s financial partner. Upon completion of construction, the Times Company and FCRC/ING will each own a commercial condominium in the building.
FCRC will own approximately 600,000 gross square feet of space in the building. This will include office space on floors 29-50, which it will lease to corporate and service firms, and approximately 20,000 square feet of ground floor retail space.
Groundbreaking: Early 2003
Occupancy by The New York Times Company: Summer 2005
Tenant occupancy: Winter 2006
Government Team State of New York:
The 42nd Street Development Project
A subsidiary of the Empire State Development Corporation
State Architectural Consultant:
Robert A.M. Stern Architects
Development Team:
Architects:
The Renzo Piano Building Workshop
Fox & Fowle Architects, PC
Structural Engineers: Thornton-Tomasetti Engineers
Mechanical Engineers: Flack & Kurtz, Inc.
Vertical Transportation Engineer: Jenkins & Huntington, Inc.
Subsurface Investigation: Muesser Rutledge Consulting Engineers
Landscape Architect: H.M. White Site Architects
Lighting Designer: OVI (Office for Visual Interaction)
Acoustical Consultant: Cerami & Associates
Preconstruction Advisor: AMEC Corporation
For The New York Times Company:
Real Estate Advisors: Insignia/ESG
Development Consultant: The Clarett Group
Owner’s Representative/Interiors: Gardiner & Theobald
Interior Architect: Gensler Associates
