Two World Trade Center design
The design for Two World Trade Center, the capstone for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center, shows off the vision of 40-year-old star Danish architect Bjark Ingels. It's the final building to be built overlooking the site of the twin towers, destroyed by terrorists on 9/11, with construction expected to start in 2016.
A photo rendering of the design shows seven separate building volumes of varying sizes and depths stacked on top of each other. The stacking creates 38,000 sq ft (3,530 sm) of outdoor terraces full of lush greenery and unprecedented views of the surrounding cityscape, intending to extend life and social interaction outdoors.
Two World Trade Center, part of the 16-acre World Trade Center site, will appear almost as tall as One World Trade Center, excluding its spire.
Two World Trade Center
A photo rendering show the imagined design for 2 WTC, 2nd from L, and its integration into its surroundings, including the cascading pools that commemorate the former twin towers.
Two World Trade Center
The building of Two WTC at 200 Greenwich Street, completing the World Trade Center, will "finally restore the majestic skyline of Manhattan and unite the streetscapes of Tribeca with the towers downtown," according to Ingels.
Ingels explained that "From Tribeca it will appear like a vertical village of singular buildings ... stacked on top of each other forming parks and plazas in the sky. From the World Trade Center individual blocks unite, completing a spiral of towers framing the memorial. Horizontal meets vertical."
Two World Trade Center
As a result of the stacked volumes, the building steps at an angle parallel to the incline of 1 WTC - a nod to the twin structures that previously stood on the site.
Ingels hopes to break ground by 2016 and complete construction in 2020.
Two World Trade Center
The 80-plus story building is aligned along the axis of World Trade Center Master Planner Daniel Libeskind's 'Wedge of Light' plaza to preserve the views to St. Paul's Chapel from the Memorial park.
Two World Trade Center
Two World Trade Center will be New York City's third-tallest building after One World Trade Center and the condo building 432 Park Avenue. The tower will rise to 1,340 feet.
Two World Trade Center
A rendering shows Two World Trade Center as part of the Manhattan skyline.
The Wall Street Journal named Ingels Innovator of the Year for architecture in October 2011. Ingels is the designer of Google's campus in San Francisco and the Danish Maritime Museum. His firm, BIG, won a bid for the redesign of part of the East River waterfront in New York City.
Two World Trade Center
The stacked design of Two World Trade Center from street level.
Ingels told The New York Times that he is a "favorite of developers because he weaves the practical with the fantastical."
Two World Trade Center
Two World Trade Center will frame the 9/11 Memorial Park alongside One WTC, 3 WTC and 4 WTC. Three WTC is scheduled to open in 2018.
Two World Trade Center
The planned view from Two World Trade Center shows the building's ridges acting as garden terraces. The building's terraces, facing east, look down on the yard of St. Paul's Chapel, one of the oldest surviving church buildings in Manhattan. Ingels wants the top most terrace to adjoin a screening room, creating an event space with views from more than a thousand feet above the city.
Two World Trade Center
The lobby design for Two World Trade Center shows off the grandness of the public spaces in the building.
Two World Trade Center
The design is derived from its urban context as a meeting point between the Financial District and the residential Tribeca neighborhood of lofts and roof gardens. The building combines characteristics of high-rise and low-rise architecture -- the modern with the historical.
Two World Trade Center
The skyline of Manhattan imagined with Two World Trade center.
Two WTC will look quite different from different angles. In designing for the hallowed ground several architects have faced the dilemma of balancing respect for the events of 9/11 and wishes of the families of victims and politicians with architectural ambition for a vastly new creation. Ingels' plan was for the building to have a serious "very straightlaced" presence overlooking the 9/11 memorial and from a different perspective fit into the fashionable, trendy surrounding neighborhood of Tribeca.
Two World Trade Center
The lower half of Two WTC will serve as the new headquarters for 21st Century Fox and News Corp. The upper half of the tower will be leased by Silverstein Properties to other commercial tenants.
Large stairwells between the floors will create cascading double-height communal spaces.
Two World Trade Center
Two WTC could only be built if there was private financing according to an agreement with developer Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority. James Murdoch's commitment to house 21st Century Fox and News Corp in his ideal workplace and his desire for Ingels to design it was instrumental in pushing the design forward, once Murdoch signed a tentative lease with Silverstein.
Two World Trade Center
Developer Larry Silverstein, who leased the Twin Towers before 9/11, had originally commissioned a design by Lord Norman Foster for Two WTC - a 70-story glass structure with a slanted glass roof. The Ingels design went forward with the support of new tenant James Murdoch.
Two World Trade Center
The base of Two World Trade Center will house retail space, TV studios and 38,000 sq ft (3,530 sm) of lobby connecting to the WTC transit hub.
Two World Trade Center
The financial district's new, modern look juxtaposed with 'old' traditional architecture.