Thermal Enviornment Case Study: New York Times Building

Facade of the New York Times building in the daylight, with its' "ceramic wall" visible.

A thermal environment is a term defined as those aspects of a workplace that include the local temperature, humidity, and air velocity as well as the presence of radiating surfaces.The New York Times building located on the east side of Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st Street in New York City, for example, was based on the subject of daylighting. In particular, my case study is on the thermal environment of the interior of the building as a whole. Designed by world-known and Pritzker prize winning Italian architect, Renzo Piano with Fox & Fowle Architects wanted to design a building with an objective to "encourage openness and communication with the external world" and acquires the atmosphere of "dedication to create a high quality work environment for its' employees."

The inspiration for the new the NY Times building was mostly from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory of Berkeley, California. They too have the same low emission glass ceramic tube shade system on the exterior structure of their lab buildings as well. A group of visitors from the New York Company along with their designers and engineers stopped for a visit at the Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division in early 2003 to get ideas and to develop a thought process design a new structure for the newspaper corporation. NY Times wanted the Lab's input on how to create a more sustainable,and Eco-friendly work place while still maintaining the role of a powerful and sufficient corporation. "The New York Times approached the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) for advice having seen LBNL's research on dynamic façade and lighting systems. Their new corporate headquarters was designed to promote "transparency" to the public via floor-to-ceiling clear glass windows shaded by a unique exterior shading system".  

One of the most noticeable aspects of the NY Times Building is its' glazed wall of Low-Emissivity glass which consists of an energy-efficient material that helps reduce heating and cooling use. To explain, low-emissivity glass is a material more commonly used and more widely known in Europe rather than in the US. "Thin horizontal ceramic tubes placed on a steel framework one and a half feet in front of the glass will screen the double glazed, spectrally selective, low-emissivity, full-height glass wall around the building, thus reducing the building's cooling loads." By the tubes being long and cylinder-like their placement on the exterior building is so that it creates such transparent pattern that employees' and others are able to peer out and have views of New York City's beautiful roof gardens.

Exterior view of the "Ceramic Wall"

The building's cooling loads will be reduced by the screening of the Low-emissivity glass by ceramic tubes

A really interesting topic I discovered about the thermal environment of the NY Times building, was  for the internal heating and cooling systems of the magnificent structure; it uses a more energy efficient process of and use of cooling than most buildings built in this decade. The building has raised floor boards allowing enough room for an "underfloor air distributor", which requires less cooling than a conventional ducted system. To add, an additional way to save more energy, was the integration of free-air cooling into the building; "bringing in the outside air when it is cooler than the interior space."

Street view of the NY Times building in the evening time.

I would personally like to note that the appearance, firstly, of this miraculous building is just stunning. Secondly, the ideas for its structure and amazing sustainable work effort that went into building this masterpiece has been simply entertaining to research and learn about. Lastly, I would like to include, that in a sense, the appearance, again, kind of looks like a newspaper. The ceramic shades create like a grittiness, in my opinion, that reflects the newspaper's appearance. Just a little fun fact to add.



References and Sources of Info:

New York Times Building

Berkley Lab

Forest City