4 World Trade Center | Maki and Associates

World Trade Center is located on the site bounded by Greenwich Street to the west, Church Street to the east, Cortlandt Street to the north and Liberty Street to the south. The tower directly faces the World Trade Center Memorial Park to the west.

PROGRAM
4 World Trade Center will be the fourth tallest skyscraper on the World Trade Center site at 977 ft from street level. The building will include 72 office floors that total approximately 2.3 million sf. A third of the office space is slated to be the new headquarters of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. The rest will be retained by Silverstein Properties for commercial tenants, with a potential for 600,000 sq ft to be occupied by the City of New York.
The podium of the building consists of the ground floor with three levels above grade and two floors below grade that are dedicated for retail use. The project provides primary access from Wall Street to the transportation and retail concourse below grade connected to the central PATH terminal.
The tower portion accommodates office spaces in two distinctly shaped floor plates. The low and mid-rise sections on floors 7 through 46 provide a typical floor plate size of 44,560 rsf in the shape of a parallelogram echoing the configuration of the site. These are served by two elevator banks with eight cars each and one elevator bank with six cars. The high-rise section from floors 48 to 63 provides a floor plate size of 34,893 rsf in the shape of a trapezoid, shaped and fluted to open toward the tip of Manhattan and triangulated from the lower floors to face 1 World Trade Center. These are served by two elevator banks with six cars each. Both office floor plans contain a central core with a 45-foot lease span on the west side facing the Memorial as well as on the north and south. The east side has a 35-foot lease span. The tower will also include five levels of mechanical floors.

DESIGN CONCEPT
The fundamental approach to 4 WTC, designed by Maki and Associates, is two-fold – a “minimalist” tower that achieves an abstract sculptural presence, quiet with dignity, on a site directly fronting the Memorial and a “podium” that becomes a catalyst in activating and enlivening the immediate urban environment at pedestrian street level as part of the redevelopment efforts of Downtown New York.
The tower façades are clad in floor to ceiling windows utilizing composite glass with multiple layers of coatings intended to achieve a mat metallic quality with a luminous sheen. It embraces an abstract quality that is unique – minimal, light, cool in color and ephemeral, changing with the light of day. Seen from a distance, the tower presents a unique angular profile that is chiselled at the crown acknowledging the spiral composition formed by the group of four towers, in keeping with the World Trade Center Master Plan.
Two opposite corners of the tower on the southwest and northeast corners are articulated with dramatic indentations, allowing the building to appear slender and sharp from the outside. Inside, this provides opportunity for multiple corner offices with uninterrupted views.
The design of the office lobby is intended to relate to and integrate the Memorial. The lobby, with a 47-foot ceiling height, faces Greenwich Street with three entrances – on Cortlandt, Liberty and Greenwich Streets. The formal composition is symmetrical and the lobby itself offers panoramic views of the World Trade Center site. The inner core wall of the lobby is clad in polished black granite to mirror the Memorial inside and is rotated to realign the geometry of the space so that it is parallel to the park. The walls of the elevator banks are finished in fused oak and glass panels to echo the oak trees lining the Memorial Park.
Facing Church Street is a 75-foot atrium offering a new dynamic urban experience by amalgamating the Transit Hall and retail into a single, identifiable whole featuring multiple cascading floors that will enliven the street and become a symbolic feature of a revitalized World Trade Center. The atrium space weaves its way into the base of the tower to provide retail space and perhaps a restaurant that faces the Memorial Park.
The four corners of the building site are all at varying topographical elevations resulting in a 12-foot level difference from the high point on the corner of Church and Cortlandt Streets to the lowest point on the corner of Greenwich and Liberty Streets diagonally across. As a result, the street fronts at ground level on all four sides are on an incline and the interior levels mitigate the level differences to achieve comfortable entry points as well as harmonious spatial relationships with the surrounding pedestrian environment.
The podium of the building from floors 1 to 3 are designed in response to the variety of characters inherent in each of the streets and to further enrich the pedestrian experience. The building is set back from all corners, creating an expanded public area along the sidewalk in the form of a small entry plaza. Each corner is provided with an entrance to either the office lobby or access to retail and the Transit Hall.

ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS / BUILDING SYSTEMS
Designed to the highest energy efficiency ratings, 4 World Trade Center will seek to achieve the
Gold standard under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) by the US Green Building Council. Among many building enhancements, the tower has a reinforced concrete core and columns with steel girders and beams. Safety systems exceed New York City building code and Port Authority requirements.

[IT]
La torre firmata dal giapponese Fumihiko Maki sarà alta 288 metri e si svilupperà su 61 piani. 

L’approccio progettuale di Maki nella realizzazione della torre 4 è duplice: da un lato una torre minimale che sottolinea con dignità la propria presenza in un’area che si affaccia su un memoriale; dall’altro un “podio” che diventa catalizzatore di un processo di attivazione e rianimazione del contesto urbano circostante.

Vista da lontano la torre di Maki presenta in cima un unico profilo angolare che permette di percepire la composizione a spirale delle quattro torri.

I quattro angoli dell’edificio si trovano ad altezze topografiche diverse, con una differenza di quasi quattro metri dal punto più alto ad angolo tra Crurch e Cortlandt Street a quello più basso ad angolo tra Greenwhich e Liberty Street.

Le facciate della torre saranno rivestite di finestre a tutt’altezza che chiuderanno a sandwich una rete metallica perforata al livello del parapetto, e porzioni al livello immediatamente sottostante il soffitto. In tal modo sarà assicurata la protezione dai raggi solari all’interno, ed al tempo stesso un gioco di luce e trasparenza all’esterno.