Designing the New York Times
Steel Grid Visible Inside and Out

By Amy Choi

At a news organization, truth is the top priority.

The design of a signature, headquarters property for The New York Times Co., one of the most prominent news organizations in the world, required truth as well.

"There are great modern architecture principles of honesty," said Dan Kaplan, senior principal at Fox & Fowle Architects, PC. "It's a celebration of the way things are constructed and turning that into architectural design. For The New York Times, we're putting the structural frame of the building on display."

To execute this vision of honesty, Fox & Fowle worked with world-renowned architect Renzo Piano, who designed the 52-story, 1.54-million-sq.-ft. exposed-steel tower, and the Renzo Piano Building Workshop.

The new development on Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st streets is expected to break ground this fall and be ready for occupancy by summer 2005.

Aesthetically, it will express utility and grace simultaneously. Kaplan likened the exposed-steel idea to a sailboat mast—"It's totally structurally derived, but it's very light and expresses lightness and elegance."

The purity of the material itself was crucial in the design. "The best buildings have a limited palate of materials and systems," said Kaplan. "So in this building, whether it's painted steel, columns on the outside or in the lobby, or a steel storefront, the basic elements (of the building) are all true to the material. Steel becomes one of the integral architectural expressions."

Structural steel is, of course, the most common building material for office buildings in New York City, but it is usually buried by a curtain wall, concrete or façade of some sort. Because each structural piece of steel will be visible in the New York Times building, close attention is being paid to what each member will do and how it appears.

"The main challenge wasn't the steel itself," said Tom Scarangello, managing principal of Thornton-Tomasetti Engineers, the structural engineers on the project. "The challenge was the high degree of visibility the steel was going to have."

Steel helped achieve Piano’s primary design expression – the quality of lightness and fading into the sky as one looks to the upper reaches of the tower, joined with the quality of strength and stability anchoring the tower to the ground.

"There was an extra level of scrutiny and awareness that we had to have on the detailing and the proportioning and connecting of the material to make sure that it met with Renzo's and Fox & Fowler's intent," Scarangello said. "The ability to sculpt steel and turn it into an art on the scale of a building like this couldn't have been done with a concrete system in any way.

"Steel was the only material to go with to have something this inviting that lets in light and air because it's got strength and the ability to form and shape into expressions."
Bob Sanna, executive vice president of design, development and construction at Forest City Ratner Cos., the developer of the property with partner ING Real Estate, added: "We have assembled a kind of erector set that you can look into. It is bridge-like in its beauty."

Retaining the beauty of the exposed steel created some obstacles for the design and engineering teams. Some less complex issues included how to abide by New York City fire codes, which require that all of the steel be fireproofed, while still maintaining the aesthetic qualities of the material. As a result, the steel on the Times building had to be finished with a special paint that can take both cosmetic exterior finishes but can also maintain the fire integrity of the beams.

The structure overall creates a vocabulary of large and small steel columns extending from the 80,000-sq.-ft. footprint to support the vertical and horizontal loads, growing slimmer as they reach higher into the sky. Rather than taking the smaller columns and fitting them with standard available shapes of beams and floorplates as the tower grows higher, the design team took the reduction in size and choreographed it so that the plate sizes drop off in a controlled manner to help create building’s feeling of lightness.

Similar attention was paid to the diagonal tie rods on the upper floors of the building. The rods control the sway of a high-rise tower and make it more comfortable for the occupants, although they do not support the building structurally.

These braces, which are usually hidden in the façade of the building, were exposed on the exterior walls in keeping with the design philosophy of honesty and additionally were kept extremely slender in order to perpetuate the critical feeling of lightness as one looked up the building.

"All of the exposed shapes were shapes that we designed," Scarangello said. "Every connection and member that we chose had to meet the design intent. It was a challenge but it was an enjoyable process because usually the design gets buried, but it'll be great to be able to see a lot of elements."

The exposed steel also played a major role in the design of the interior and ground-floor lobby of the building. The storefront of the property is steel, which is unusual in the United States, and the lobby itself has steel cladding and columns.

"The steel was exposed in the building as well as in the lobby, which was a very deliberate attempt to bring these members in," Sanna said. "You see the very strong grid and the elements from within as well as from outside."