Hearst Tower (New York City)
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Hearst Tower in New York City, New York is located at 300 West 57th Street on Eighth Avenue, near Columbus Circle. It is the world headquarters of the Hearst Corporation, bringing together for the first time their numerous publications and communications companies under one roof, including Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and the San Francisco Chronicle, to name a few.
The former six-story headquarters building was commissioned by the founder, William Randolph Hearst and awarded to the architect Joseph Urban. The building was completed in 1928 and the original cast stone facade has been preserved in the new design as a designated Landmark site. Originally built as the base for a proposed skyscraper, the construction of the tower was postponed due to the Great Depression. The new tower addition was completed nearly eighty years later, and 2000 Hearst employees moved in on 4 May 2006. [1].
The tower – designed by the architecture firm of Foster and Partners – is 46 stories tall, standing 182 m (596 ft) with 80,000 m² (856,000 ft²) of office space. The uncommon triangular perimeter (also known as a diagrid) required 9,500 metric tons (10,480 tons) of structural steel — reportedly about 20% less than a conventional steel frame.
Hearst Tower is the first green building completed in New York City, with a number of environmental considerations built into the plan. The floor of the atrium is paved with heat conductive limestone. Polyethylene tubing is embedded under the floor and filled with circulating water for cooling in the summer and heating in the winter. Rain collected on the roof is stored in a tank in the basement for use in the cooling system, to irrigate plants and for the water sculpture in main lobby. Overall, the building has been designed to use 25% less energy than the minimum requirements for the city of New York, and earned a gold designation from the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification program.
The atrium features escalators which run through a 3 story water sculpture Icefall, constructed with thousands of glass panels to make a wide waterfall that is used to control heat and humidity. The water element is complemented by 70 foot tall fresco painting (21.3 meters) entitled Riverlines by artist Richard Long.
