Page 83 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

60 THE PRACTICE OF INTEGRATED DESIGN

a layer of complexity as well as a tremendous amount of richness to the building. These
screens also provide sun shading which is a primary feature of the building’s greenness
[by reducing the air-conditioning load and subsequent electricity demand].
Early on in the design process we made a joint decision with the owners that we
would meet every month, alternating between Renzo’s office in Paris and our office
in New York City. This worked out very well as we could get much more of Renzo’s
attention when we were in Paris. The rhythm of every month was good because we
were able to do enough work between meetings to move the process forward. In the
early stages, some of Renzo’s people were in our office full time where we had
workstations available to them. Occasionally, we would send members of our con-
sultant’s staff to Paris for extended periods. For the most part, half of the work was
done in their office and half in our office.
The more vital design elements, like the development of the façade and the external
character of the building, were done primarily in Paris. During the construction phase,
there were usually one or two people from Renzo’s office here helping with coordi-
nation, field changes, and clarification of the design intent. It was not a situation
where the design architects turned it over to the local architect to implement the con-
struction documents and oversee the construction administration. It was really a col-
laborative effort although the emphasis of the work during the construction phase was
out of FXFOWLE’s office and the emphasis during the early design was out of
[Piano’s] office.

Because the building design started in 2000, prior to the development of the
USGBC’s LEED rating system, it did not go through the LEED certification
process. Nevertheless, the New York Times Building is a classic example of inte-
grated design in a very demanding environment, using international cooperation
between two leading architectural firms as the touchstone for the process. For
example, in discussing the role of the key engineering consultants in this project,
Bruce Fowle says:

The engineers were brought into the process right from the beginning. You can’t
really do a high-rise building like that without the engineering input since it has so
much influence on the integrity and character of the building. This was particularly
true in this case where we were exposing the structure, which was the first time that
had been done in the U.S. (exposing structure on a high-rise building of this nature).
It demanded a very integrated process.
The engineers participated in on all of the weekly team meetings and in the majority
of monthly meetings with the owners, either in Paris or New York. Each week we
would determine work plan for the following week. We have a system of writing
meeting memorandums that tracks all open items and makes it clear what action is
required from each party. So, for instance, the memo might read, “Flack+Kurtz
is going to study the use of XYZ mechanical system.” The complexity and numer-
ous innovations of the project demanded many specific consultant meetings in addi-
tion to the regular meetings. We had 30 or 40 different consultants involved in this