There are a number of reasons the new glass and steel addition to the Hearst Building, on the corner of 57th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, has been one of the most talked about structures recently built in New York City. It is the first high-rise to be designed by Norman Foster Partners, the award-winning UK firm, in Manhattan. It was in contention to be the first commercial office building in New York City to achieve a gold rating in the LEED program.

The 46-story tower of gleaming diagonal glass and steel grids stands out in the city’s skyline, on top of the reconstructed base of the historic art deco structure which was built in 1928 as the headquarters of the Hearst publication empire, giving a skyline full of distinctive designs one more.

And, not least, in the spectacular entrance in the three-story lobby of the newly designed structure with its glass water fall in an airy, light-filled, soaring space.

Architects’ Guide to Glass & Metal spoke to James Carpenter, who designed what is called the water feature (or more formally the Ice Falls), the latest in a long line of glass-inspired designed for the New York City-based company he founded.

Q&A:

AGG: How did the Hearst project come about?

JC: The Hearst project had been underway for three or four years when we were asked to get involved and look at what might be possible for what was called a water feature in the lobby. They had been working for a year or so, I believe, on a water feature for the space that was made of black granite. I think there was always a thought of some connection to light or glass in the space. We slowly suggested that the granite might be replaced with glass. We began doing a series of prototypes and tests making different glass shapes, which initially simulated the stone shapes, but ultimately lead to a separate idea about encased glass that would become a fountain for the lobby. We were commissioned to design the fountain in collaboration with Foster and Partners. 

AGG: They weren’t sure what they wanted to do with the lobby but they wanted a water fall?

JC: They knew they wanted a water fall. The lobby is quite unusual in that there is the older original building façade surrounding the site. The new tower is set back quite far from the wall planes of the original building base so there is an enormous amount of skylighting and clerestory lighting illuminating the whole lobby space. There is a wonderful amount of daylight in the space. 

I think they wanted to have water on an inclined surface where the escalators go up. They were working in a direction that they were not overly happy with—the granite. Our approach had to do with that abundance of daylight, taking advantage of that light, sky-brightness to basically reflect the light out toward the street. Standing outside on the street, looking in at this sloped surface with the bright skylights overhead, it is basically a periscope. The brightness comes down, hits that 45 degree angle and the light bounces out to the street. It’s like a periscopic view of the sky overhead. It takes great advantage of the amount of available light and activates that whole surface. You can’t really look into most building lobbies because there is not enough daylight inside to overcome the brightness outside. Instead of the lobby being darker, less open and less inviting, here with the water feature bouncing the light down into the space, it is possible to look very clearly into the lobby. The eye is drawn up into the upper parts of the lobby atrium. 

AGG: As you worked on the project, you suggested glass would be a better alternative to stone?

JC: Yes. Because light is so important, we thought we needed a surface that when the water cascades over it the water picks up the light and you get that sparkling quality of the water. There was nothing behind the black granite which took advantage of the light. We got that advantage by working with much thicker cast glass.

The principle was for the light to come down and go through the water, through the glass, getting a kind of natural surface activity on the glass in the back. Your eye doesn’t actually go through it. It hits that surface and bounces out toward you. So you get the water and the glass interacting. It’s taking two materials that are very dynamic in relationship to how they perform with light—the movement of the water and the optical quality of the glass interacting with each other and creating a sense of depth to the water. Even though it is very shallow, the water looks very deep cascading down over the surface. 

AGG: How much total surface is there?

JC: It’s 48 feet on the slope by about 75 feet wide, that’s about 3,000 square feet. The amount of glass is actually about 20 tons. The standard planks are about 56 inches long. They are all the same cross section. Then because the escalators cut through the space at an angle, there is a whole series of odd-sized glass plank pieces that meet the angle of the escalator as it goes up the incline surface.

AGG: Who did the casting?

JC: John Lewis Studios in Oakland, Calif. John and I met when we were studying glass and glassmaking in the 1960s. He specializes in glass casting. We did studies of shapes for the castings, then working with the optics of how the light bounces through the glass shape, we came up with the rippled configuration. We designed the fountain and the individual castings and worked with John to detail some of the things that would make it easier for the casting process. The glass is cast by being poured into large graphite bowls. The mold is longer than the blocks themselves, with sliding ends which can be used to determine the length of the pieces. Each piece of glass took about four or five days to anneal.

AGG: What is the actual construction of the installation?

JC: There is the casting and then another piece of glass sets on top of it sort of like a glass block. The water runs over the surface of the cast glass and the glass block sets just slightly in front of the water. 

The design went through quite a few iterations, which is not unusual. Since the construction was already underway, there were a lot of parameters that had to be kept to. The angle was predetermined as was the size. So it was a matter of working to maximize the effect of the light. We built a lot of different small mock-ups down in the basement of the Hearst building and tested them and showed them to the client. They decided on this one type of glass. 

The glass is supported by a steel substructure which is the building structure and then there’s a secondary layer of stainless steel structure which runs horizontally. Coming off of that are stainless steel plates which come up and there’s a polycarbonate piece mounted on that stainless steel. The glass planks set on the polycarbonate piece which fits into a notch in the glass. We’re just supporting the glass on the two ends. The castings can take up to 14,000 pounds of force before they break.

It was a very good collaboration with the colleagues at Foster, and Allied Bronze was the contractor. 

AGG: You’ve done a wide range in terms of body of work, where does the Hearst project fall?

JC: That’s very hard to say. We work on a range of scales. We do commercial, residential, interior, exterior. This project allowed us to develop a large-scale project in cast glass, which I don’t think has really been done before. Secondarily, working with Foster’s office, the water feature is actually part of the cooling system for the building. Water used in the fountain is actually rain water which comes off the roof of the building. It goes down into a storage tank, is cleaned and purified and then is the water that cascades over the glass. The water is actually chilled on the surface of the glass so that in warm weather it is actually part of the cooling system. 

It is sort of an art work, in its own way, and is somewhat innovative in terms of how the glass is being used and making custom pieces of glass for it. It’s also innovative in that’s it’s an active part of the building’s mechanical system. That’s something we try to do in all our work. We try to overlay an aesthetic goal and an environmental goal, whether it’s thermal performance or, in this case, the cooling system, or daylighting in the offices to reduce electric usage. We’re trying to couple the aesthetic idea with an idea which is linked more directly to environmental or sustainable concerns. 

So to come back to the question of where this fits in our body of projects, it’s very hard to say other than it is one of the most challenging projects which we have taken on and we always try to find a way to innovate in the project and this is a very good example of innovation in the use of the glass. We’re very happy with it. From our point of view, it was a very successful project.

AGG: What projects are you working on now?

JC: We’re working on the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. This is probably one of the more challenging projects for us in its complexity. It’s complicated in that it’s an existing campus with the original buildings built in the 1960s and the existing elements are very rich. We’ve been asked to do four new buildings and a route of passage that allows visitors to access the museum galleries and the various buildings. I’m also very excited about the work we’re doing on the new federal courthouse in Salt Lake City. It has a very unique curtainwall. We usually have eight or nine projects ongoing at any one time. 

One of your earlier questions was about where does Hearst fit into our body of work. Every project is totally different. For Hearst, we were working on the water feature. For SOM at 7 World Trade Center, we were working on the enclosure of the Con Ed transformers. In Israel it’s a lot of underground passageways, a challenge as to how to get light into there.

What I’m saying is that we don’t have a type of building that we repeat. Every opportunity tends to be different and trigger its own answer which you might not have thought of if you weren’t challenged by the opportunities or limitations that the project brings to you. 

We tend to find our work between areas: there’s fine arts, the aesthetic component of it; there’s the architecture which is the designing and cladding; and there’s the formal structural engineering aspect of it—the structural engineering of the glass. What is interesting to me is that we don’t necessarily operate in any of these three fields exclusively. We’re in the mix between these three fields. And I think that’s what leads to these unusual opportunities that come to us. I don’t think what we do is very clearly defined. But somehow these opportunities come up and you try to run with them and turn them into something. 

AGG: And amazingly glass always seems to be part of your solution.

JC: Yes, glass to me is an incredible material. I’m fascinated with it. I have my own way of thinking about glass and what it is. When I think about changing people’s experience with space, a lot of that has to do with working with light. The light brings with it a very complex amount of information which you interpret. I’m interested in how there is conscience information and unconscious or memory and glass can be the boundary between them in terms of what someone experiences in a space. It’s not just a window. 

USG
© Copyright 2006 Key Communications Inc. All rights reserved.
No reproduction of any type without expressed written permission.