To meet those demands, architect David M. Childs drew inspiration from the original Twin Towers, designing a simpler building that uses the same width and height as the two boxy landmarks, including the angle to the street, but with a tapered, octagonal shape, The Wall Street Journal Online reported.
The latest model is the product of six frazzled weeks of work. In April, the New York City Police Department said the building's glass facade, situated close to a highway, made it too fragile to protect occupants against truck bombs. As a result, Childs and his client, private developer Larry A. Silverstein, abandoned two years of preparations on the tower.
The now-defunct plan, with its twisting body and cable-wrapped skin, was flashier and more architecturally daring, characteristics driven in part by politicians seeking to make a bold, symbolic response to the terror attacks. This latest design clearly is driven more by security. Significantly, it demonstrates how Sept. 11, 2001, and the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995 have affected the design of major public and landmark buildings. Architects now need to think creatively about how to make such structures inviting, without compromising safety.
Construction of the tower's basement won't begin until 2006, with steel rising above street level in 2007 and hitting its maximum height in 2009. An opening date is scheduled for sometime in 2010. Larry A. Silverstein, the building's developer wouldn't specify a price, though the old design was expected to cost around $1.5 billion. The new, more straight forward design could make it less expensive to build.
The new design starts from a massive, 200-foot concrete base that will protect it from blasts. To make it look less fortress-like, the base will be clad in shimmering pieces of metal. The building above is to be constructed entirely of clear glass and steel. A pinstripe façade and square roof line faintly evoke the modern minimalism of the original Twin Towers. A tall center spire on the top, lit from within, recalls the nearby torch of the Statue of Liberty.
The security features inside the building include a protective concrete core that will shield escape stairwells, fireproof elevators, sprinklers and communications systems. Childs says the tower incorporates many recommendations from a recent report on building safety from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Despite the reassurances about the building's safety, it is unclear whether any companies would lease space in the tower. Silverstein's 7 World Trade Center, which is under construction across the street from the Freedom Tower, still has no tenants committed to it months before it is set to open. Investment bank Goldman Sach Group Inc. dropped plans to build its headquarters nearby because of security concerns.
The simpler structure could make construction easier and the floor sizes will be more optimal to the type of Wall Street firms that might take space there. Despite a more slender frame, the design retains the same amount of floor space as the old plan — 2.6 million square feet — by having more occupied space higher up in the building. The old design had a mostly empty, cage-like ornament above the 70th floor.
The roof of the new design will reach 1,362 feet and a guard rail above that will hit 1,368 feet, the heights of the twin towers. Above that an illuminated spire that doubles as a transmission antenna will reach the symbolic height of 1,776 feet.
The now-scrapped design was unveiled in December 2003, after a rancorous collaboration between architects Childs, of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, and Daniel Libeskind, the 16-acre site's master planner who first conceived of a 1,776 foot skyscraper in that spot.
Childs was hired by Silverstein, the site's private office developer, while Libeskind, backed by New York Gov. George Pataki, remained in a consulting role. Initially, Childs proposed a design that reached 2,000 feet, higher than Libeskind had defined in his master plan.
Libeskind won out on the building's height. He also forced Childs to attach a narrow off-center spire to the top of the architect's design. Despite Libeskind's influence, the overall feel, with its twisted shape and the crisscross diagonal cable wrapping, was Childs's.
Building construction is likely to be funded from a dwindling pot of money Silverstein is owed from his insurers. In total, he could receive as much at $4.6 billion, though a fair deal of that already has been spent or allocated to paying back lenders, lawyers, architects and management fees for Silverstein Properties.
After the Freedom Tower and related underground infrastructure, there will be little insurance money left to build the other four towers planned for the site.
