THE HEARST TOWER

ENERGY EFFICIENT BUILDINGS

1 Building Science

ENERGY

Energy, in building science, is a fuel or resource in building science used to operate machinery,

for heating and cooling puposes.

The sources of energy are broadly classified into two main groups: Renewable and Non-

renewable

Renewable Energy

Renewable energy is the energy which is generated from natural sources i.e. sun, wind, rain,

tides and can be generated again and again as and when required. They are available in plenty

and by far most the cleanest sources of energy available on this planet. For eg: energy that we

receive from the sun can be used to generate electricity. Similarly, energy from wind,

geothermal, biomass from plants, tides can be used to fulfill our daily energy demands

Non-Renewable Energy

Non-Renewable energy is the energy which is taken from the sources that are available on the

earth in limited quantity and will vanish fifty-sixty years from now. Non-renewable sources are

not environmental friendly and can have serious affect on our health. They are called non-

renewable because they cannot be re-generated within a short span of time. Non-renewable

sources exist in the form of fossil fuels, natural gas, oil and coal.

Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the goal to reduce the

amount of energy required to provide products and services. For energy conservation and

efficiency, we can use several methods. They are mainly classified as:

Active energy

Passive energy

Energy efficiency has proved to be a cost-effective strategy for building economies without

necessarily increasing energy consumption.

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THE HEARST TOWER

Architects: Foster and Partners

Location: Midtown Manhattan, New York City,

New York, USA

Architect: Foster and Partners

Project Design: Norman Foster

Structural Engineer: WSP Cantour Seinuk

Construction: Turner Construction

Project Year: 2006

Hearst Tower is the world headquarters of

the Hearst Corporation, bringing together for the

first time their numerous publications and

communications companies under one roof,

including, among others, Cosmopolitan, Esquire

Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar, Good

Housekeeping and Seventeen.

Hearst Tower was the first skyscraper to break ground in New York City after September 11, 2001.

The building received the 2006 Emporis Skyscraper Award, citing it as the best skyscraper in the

world completed that year. 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.

The first “green” high rise office building to be completed in New York City, Hearst Tower

accurately represents the talent and intellect that drives Foster and Partners toward innovative

and ground breaking design.

The building's symmetrically jagged silhouette is easily recognizable in its surroundings. The

diagrid facade comprised of triangulated steel frame was designed to use 21% less steel than

traditional buildings of it's type. Also impressive is the statistic which states that 90% of the

10,480 tons of steel used is derived from recycled material.

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INTRODUCTION

Hearst Tower is a 46-storey office tower whose

landmark six-story cast stone base is ornamented

with columns and allegorical statues, while the

tower portions’ diagrid cladding is profiled

stainless steel and low-E clear glass. Hearst Tower

is located on 8th Avenue between 56th and 57th

Streets.

The former six-story headquarters building was

commissioned by its founder, William Randolph

Hearst, and awarded to the architect Joseph

Urban. The building was completed in 1928.

Because the building is a designated landmark

site, the original cast stone facade has been

preserved in the new. 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 80 years later. The tower—

designed by the architect Norman Foster,

developed by Tishman Speyer, and constructed by Turner Construction—is 46 stories tall,

standing 597 feet with 856,000 square feet of office space. The uncommon triangular framing

pattern (also known as a diagrid) required 10,480 tons of structural steel—20% less than a

conventional steel frame. Hearst Tower was the first skyscraper to break ground in New York City

after September 11, 2001.

A number of amenities were addded to better serve tenants, including restroom upgrades,

workstations, a wellness center, ongoing seminars and events on various health issues, the Club

(a fitness facility), Café 57 (a 340-seat corporate cafeteria), a newsstand, function spaces

(including the Joseph Urban Theater and the 44th floor), state-of-the-art technology, Studio D

(a professional photography studio), and Studio 57 (a full HD broadcast studio). All 80

conference rooms on the office floors are equipped with high-standard AV technology and are

set to “plug and play.” There is IPTV for employees to view television programming or a live

broadcast of a presentation taking place in the Joseph Urban Theater, as well as a media lab

and IT training rooms.

Located two blocks south of Central Park, the building is within walking distance of Midtown

Manhattan and all that New York City has to offer. The property is easily accessible by the

Columbus Circle subway station and several NYC Metropolitan Bus routes.

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Key Details

First building in New York City to receive a LEED® Gold certification for New

Construction™ - Commerical Interiors™

Diagrid frame contains roughly 20% less steel than would a conventional perimeter

frame, saving approximately 2,000 tons of steel

Each triangle in the diagrid is four stories tall, or 54 feet

Over 90% of its structural steel contains recycled material

Daylight sensors control lighting and reduce energy use

95% of office space has daylighting; 80% has views

Over one mile of glass office fronts

15 passenger elevators utilizing the Schindler Miconic 10 destination dispatch vertical

transportation system

High-speed fiber-optic data transmission; fully Wi-Fi enabled

Nine-story atrium lobby with a six-story fresco, Riverlines, and a three-story glass water

feature, Icefall

Sustainability

LEED® Gold for Existing Buildings™

LEED® for Existing Building: Platinum

In 2011, Hearst Tower achieved an ENERGY STAR® score of 88. Efforts are now under

way to improve the score further by ensuring that all possible measures are being taken

to reduce energy consumption.

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The glass and steel addition sits atop a six-story cast

stone base, which was designed by Joseph Urban in 1928

at a cost of $2 million. Founded by William Randolph

Hearst, the 40,000 square feet was designated a

Landmark site during the initial designs of the addition.

The new tower stands 46 stories tall, housing 80,000

square meters of office space.

Hearst Tower entered the scene at a very important

historical moment in American history, as it was the first

skyscraper to be built after September 11, 2011. Foster

and Partners' dedication to incomparable design

becomes clearer with each project, with the Hearst

Tower receiving the 2006 Emporis Skyscraper Award as

the best skyscraper of the year in the world.

New York City’s Hearst Tower is

largely made from recycled steel and

uses rainwater for 50% of its needs

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Foster and Partners pushed the boundaries with their long list of environmental considerations

which lead to the designation of Hearst Tower as New York City's first LEED Gold certified

skyscraper. Heat conductive limestone paves the atrium floor, covering polyethylene tubing that

circulates water year round to help control the ambient temperature of the building. During the

rain, water is collected on the roof and then stored in the basement. This becomes key in the

floor tubing, irrigation, and the water sculpture in the lobby.

Icefall, the water

sculpture that reaches

three stories high, is

constructed with

thousands of glass

panels and also

contributes to the

thermal conditions of

the building by cooling

and humidifying the air

using the recycled

rainwater. Hearst Tower

remains at a comfortable

temperature for a

majority of the year by

natural ventilation.

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Another obvious way to bring down the financial and

environmental costs of the skyscraper is by optimizing the

amount of natural light flowing through the building. To

maximize the penetration of light, Foster limited the

amount of interior walls so as to block less light. Light

sensors are used to measure amounts of natural light and

react automatically depending on what is needed.

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BUILDING TECHNOLOGY

Victor Ganzi, president and CEO of PM's parent

company, Hearst, approved the tower just one

month after 9/11, committing to keep its

headquarters and 2000 local employees in New

York. The project posed a unique challenge for

British architect Norman Foster, internationally

acclaimed for graceful, modernist designs. The

contemporary skyscraper was to sit atop the

original Hearst building, a six-story 1928 art deco

landmark.

Foster's solution was to leave the limestone facade

intact, but to carve out the building's center to

create a vast atrium, and then lift the new tower

above it with huge steel-and-concrete beams. The

resulting nine-story interior, with its 30-ft.-high

waterfall and clerestory windows, promises to be one of the most dramatic spaces in New York.

"The concept," Foster says, "was to create an 'urban living room.'"

The tower's distinctive framework is a "diagrid" of interlinked triangles, so structurally efficient

that the building uses 20 percent less steel than conventional designs require. Floor-to-ceiling

windows cast light on 95 percent of the occupied space.

Thanks to dozens of energy-saving features, from motion sensors to high-efficiency ventilation

equipment, the total energy consumption of the building will be 22 percent less than that of a

typical skyscraper of comparable size-a savings of 2 million kilowatt-hours of electricity a year.

Elements throughout the building reduce the use of resources: Carpets, ceiling tiles and

furnishings were made with recycled materials; rainwater collected in 14,000-gal. tanks will

humidify the atrium. The tower is on track to become the first commercial skyscraper in New

York to receive a "gold" rating under the U.S. Green Building Council's program for Leadership in

Energy and Environmental Design.

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WATER CIRCULATION

Engineers tested the design of the lobby's 30-ft.-high waterfall using a model (above). The full-

scale version flanks both sides of the escalator, contributing to aesthetics and important building

functions. Replenished by rainwater collected on the roof, the water feature helps maintain an

ideal relative humidity of 30 to 50 percent, depending on the season, and cuts the atrium's

summer air-conditioning load by 5 percent. Water circulating through polyethylene pipes

embedded in the atrium floor provides radiant heating and cooling (below). In winter, this system

warms the granite floor to 78 F, supplying 36 percent of the atrium's heating. During the summer,

it chills the floor to 72 F, supplying 10 percent of the atrium's cooling.

GOING UP

An escalator will lead employees from the street-level entrance to the third-floor atrium level.

Manufactured in one piece, the 56-ft.-long escalator had to be hoisted into the gutted interior of

the 1928 building while the roof was off. It sat protected by plywood for more than a year before

it was installed.

Water feature

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CURTAIN WALL

The diagrid pattern intrinsic to the tower's basic construction

is traced on the exterior by stainless steel cladding. "By

expressing the structure in a sculptural way and casing it in

reflective stainless steel, it becomes the identity of the

tower," Foster says, "especially from a distance." Installing

the cladding required a custom-built, double-tier monorail

scaffold system that could move side to side as well as up and

down. Because of the building's shape, the installation of

windows proved tricky, too. "On any given floor you can have

as many as 30 different window configurations," says Syed

Alkarimi, the architectural coordinator in charge of the

facade. The double-pane glass has a low-E coating to let

visible light through while reflecting heat-causing

wavelengths. Laminate on the inner pane is twice as thick as

is typical; it should remain intact in the event of a disaster,

while the outer pane is designed to shatter.

MULTIFACETED

The 46-story edifice incorporates the original Hearst building,

finished in 1928, which was intended to support a tower that was

never built. "The challenge was to respond, at some 70 years'

remove, to the original vision of the building," Foster says. He did

so by creating a transition zone of clerestory glass that floods the

atrium with daylight. "By lifting the tower up 10 floors, we

achieved a separation from the original building, and the tower

appears to float above it." Because there are no columns on the

perimeter, the corners instead form eight-story-high "bird's

mouths." Cleaning them requires a custom-built scaffold. The

system has a raised track on the roof and articulating arms to move

the platforms in and out with the glass. "It's like a ride at

Disneyland," Borland says. Adds Alkarimi, "It's a little scarier than

that."

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BUILDING MATERIALS

The tower – designed by the architect Norman Foster is 46 stories tall, standing 182 m (597 ft)

with 80,000 m² (856,000 ft²) of office space. The uncommon triangular framing pattern (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.

The Hearst Tower has a host of features that contribute to it's gold LEED rating, including low-

emitting glass, light sensors to control the amount of artificial light used based on the amount of

natural light available from outside, high-efficiency HVAC systems, Energy Star appliances, and

the use of outside air for cooling and ventilation during 75 percent of the year. Rainwater

collection and reuse provides about half of the watering needs while also humidifying and chilling

the 10-story atrium as necessary. Low-vapor and low-

toxicity paints are used on walls and concrete surfaces, and

furnishings are formaldehyde-free. Floors and ceilings

were manufactured with recycled content and wood from

sustainable forests. The Hearst Tower is designed to be

26% more energy-efficient than a standard office building.

The tower is supported by 12 raking mega-columns.

Exterior cladding by Permasteelisa with Avesta linen-

finish stainless steel and Guardian Luxguard glass

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Exterior lighting by WE:EF; controls by Lutron

Acoustic ceilings by USG and Decoustics;

interior lighting by Zumtobel

Demountable partitions by IOC; pin-up wall by

Maharam Carnegie

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The atrium features escalators which run through a 3-story water sculpture titled Icefall, a wide

waterfall built with thousands of glass panels, which cools and humidifies the lobby air

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

the main lobby. The building was

constructed using 80% recycled steel. Overall, the building has been designed to use 25% less

energy than the minimum requir ements for the city of New York, and earned a gold designation

from the United States Green Building Council’s LEED certification program.

The atrium features escalators which run through a 3-story water sculpture titled Icefall, a wide

waterfall built with thousands of glass panels, which cools and humidifies the lobby air. The water

element is complemented by a 70-foot (21.3 m) tall fresco painting entitled Riverlines by artist

Richard Long.

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Structure

Obstructed views on the west side of the site forced the architects to move the elevator core

from the center to the west side of the building. However, by doing this, it meant that the east

side of the facade may have been left unstable and vulnerable to lateral wind forces. The

solution was either a hefty moment frame or a visually and physically lighter diagrid.

The diagrid solution reduces the total amount of steel by 20 percent (then a conventional steel

frame)while increasing structural rigidity and reducing weight. It also has the effect of allowing

40 foot spans, maximizing column, free space and permitting the elimination of corner

supports. The structure utilizes an impressive 85 percent of recycled steel.

Climate-Control System, Reflective Pavers, Low-E Glazing & Sensors

The climate control system incorporates “free air-cooling”, using filtered outside air without

temperature adjustment 75 percent of the year. Reflective pavers are utilized to increase

energy efficiency by reducing solar absorption in the in roof, while low-E coated glass ushers in

daylight without heat-producing radiation. Sensors are used throughout the building to

conserve both electricity and water.

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ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Energy-saving features in the tower include:

Glass coating to reduce solar radiation and therefore cooling load - the glass has a special 'low-E' coating that allows for internal spaces to be flooded with natural light while keeping out the invisible solar radiation that causes heat

A limestone atrium floor with embedded polyethylene tubing for circulating water for cooling in the summer and heating in the winter

Sensors that control artificial light based on the amount of natural light Motion sensors to turn off lights and computers when an area is unoccupied High-efficiency heating and air-conditioning equipment that uses outside air for cooling

and ventilation for 75% of the year A roof that collects rainwater in a 14,000gal basement reclamation tank, which then

replaces water lost to evaporation in the office air-conditioning system and feeds into a pumping system to irrigate plantings and trees inside and outside of the building

The 'Icefall,' a two-storey waterfall that chills the ten-storey atrium, drawing off warm-season heat using rainwater from the roof

Few internal walls and low workstation partitions to maximise natural light Walls are coated with low-vapour paints Low-toxicity furniture, finishes and carpeting have content that is recycled or harvested

from sustainable forests Concrete surfaces are treated with low-toxicity sealants

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Site + Climate:

The building envelope was designed to limit glare from low angle sun during the early morning

and evenings.

Form + Massing:

The massing was predetermined by the footprint of the existing Hearst building. The design of

the tower, sought to protect the existing podium, whilst extending the building with a

distinctive new tower.

Passive Design:

To minimise solar gain, the building envelope contains high performance low emission glass,

with integral roller blinds which can be used to reduce glare. The building is naturally

overshadowed by the surrounding buildings so large skylights were used at the podium level to

bring daylight into the atrium space.

Environmental Systems:

The atrium contains a radiant floor, a tempered water wall and temperature controlled walls. In

the office spaces, an economiser cycle on the AHUs provide fresh air ventilation for 75% of

year.

Mobility + Connectivity:

The design included an upgrade to the local subway station, and reinstated an entrance within

the building, giving employees direct access to public transport.

Materials + Waste:

The diagrid structure uses 20 per cent less steel than a conventionally framed structure, and it

was built using 85 per cent recycled steel. Locally sourced materials are used throughout.

Water:

Harvested rainwater from the roof is fed into a central tank and used for irrigation and to feed

the water feature. This, alongside water efficient fixtures and fittings, has led to a 30%

reduction in water usage compared to a typical building.

Land + Ecology:

The design ensured that all existing trees on site were protected, and to ensure their long term

vitality, they are now irrigated through the rainwater harvesting system.

Culture + Heritage:

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The design preserved the façade of the existing structure and establishes a creative dialogue

between the old and new. The forty-two-storey tower rises above the old building and has

resulted in an award winning addition to the New York Sky Line.

Wellbeing:

At the base of the tower, there is a large atrium space for the building users. A water feature

helps enhance the microclimate by thermally tempering the space, providing acoustic

dampening and humidity control. Daylight floods the space through high level sky lights, helping

to create a healthy, vibrant space.

Prosperity:

Local construction firms were chosen where possible, to enhance the local economy. In

operation, the building has helped to regenerate the surrounding area.

Performance in Use:

First LEED Gold commercial office building in New York. Since completion it has gone on to

achieve LEED Platinum for its operation and maintenance.

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21 Building Science

SUSTAINABILITY POLICY

"We can not ignore the damage that our buildings inflict on the natural environment. As the

consequences of our past inaction becomes ever more apparent, designing for a sustainable

future becomes a necessity, not a choice. Sustainable design means doing the most with the least

means. Following the logic of ‘less is more,’ it employs passive architectural means to reduce

energy consumption, minimising the use of nonrenewable fuel and reducing the amount of

pollution. Responsible sustainable design is not simply about individual buildings; it should be

implemented at all scales - from product design to the design of cities. In the final analysis,

sustainability is about good design. The higher the quality of design, and the more efficient the

project is, the longer the project will have a role, and in sustainability terms, longevity is a good

thing. The following Sustainability Policy outlines Foster + Partners’ approach to sustainable

design."

– Norman Foster

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

o www.fosterandpartners.com

o http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearst_Tower_(Manhattan)

o www.hearst.com

o www.sustainablecitiescollective.com

o www.designbuild-network.com

o www.building.co.uk

o archnet.org

o www.archdaily.com

o www.slideshare.net