Green Building in NYC

[Subdude]

Architecture

7 World Trade Center and Hearst Building: New York's Test Cases for Environmentally Aware Office Towers

By ROBIN POGREBIN

Published: April 16, 2006

A DECADE ago, office towers guzzled energy as fast as they could, and "sick building syndrome" was dismissed as a hypochondriac's all-purpose excuse. Since then, however, the rise of "green" architecture has encouraged architects, developers and construction managers to consider the effect their buildings have on the health of their occupants and the environment. Today green is a buzzword, a term to which all sorts of new buildings attempt to lay claim. But does that mean people who show up to work in the morning breathe more easily?

New York now has two important test cases, as workers prepare to occupy the city's first officially green office towers. Seven World Trade Center, a 52-story, $7 million replacement for the building that fell at that address on 9/11, was certified by the U.S. Green Building Council last month. The 46-story Hearst Tower, on 57th Street near Eighth Avenue, is expected to follow suit after completion next month.

Certification was not a simple matter. (In fact the developers turned it into a marketing strategy all its own: "going for the gold" in the race to be first.) In 2000, the council

[YakuzaIce]

Isn't the Bank of America building supposed to be a very green building also?. But I guess it isn't mentioned because it isn't completed yet. I want to say though that they were trying for a Platinum rating.

[editor]

I saw the Hearst building when it was about half done in February of 2005. Really fascinating. Much more interesting in person than in any photograph.