HEARST TOWER

Location: New York, New York

Architect: Foster & Partners

Victoria Adams
Austin Ash
Ashton Holliday
Lisa Milks
Jacob Richie
Frank Volpicella
www.tishmanspeyer.com
 introduction
• Architect:
– Foster + Partners

• Structural Engineer
– WSP Cantor Seinuk

• Construction Management
– Turner Construction

• Fabricators
– Cives Steel Fabrication and Mountain Enterprises

• New 46-Story tower completed in 2006

• Estimated Cost: $500 million
• New York City’s first LEED Gold Skyscraper
background
•The Hearst building constructed
in 1928 featured a six-story stone
façade designed by Joseph Urban
as the headquarters for the Hearst
Corporation

Structural System
•serves as a testament to
technology at the turn of the
millennium and a symbol of
sustainable innovation in urban
construction.

Building Features
•triangular diagrid, sustainable
approaches to steel construction,
and the synthesis designed
structure
www.tishmanspeyer.com
background
Original Function
•Hearst requested in 1928 needed a
high quality office environment
which he expected would
continually serve employees in the
future

•The existing six-story façade www.worldarchitecturenews.com

retains the cast stone construction

with fluted allegorical columns

www.worldarchitecturenews.com
background
This building was initially
intended to serve as the base
for a skyscraper expansion in
the 1920s, the Great
Depression financially halted
construction for over 80 years.
Being the tallest skyscraper
erected after 9/11, The new
Hearst Tower had to serve as a
powerful symbol of business
progression in a post-911 world

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/06/06/arts/norm.190.jpg
foundation
Spread Footings and
Caissons
• Considering the
sub-grade rock varied
thirty feet in elevation,
half of the tower rests on
spread footings while the
rest is supported by
caissons embedded into
the rock itself

Footprint www.penrconstruction.com

• The tower has a

footprint of 160 feet by
120 feet
preservation
Vertical Supports
•The existing supporting steel
columns and spandrel beams
provide full vertical support for the
facades

Lateral Stability https://www.flickr.com/photos/glemak/142359781/in/pool-hearst_tower

•The engineers needed to provide

lateral stability and address new
seismic requirements in the New
York City building code

•An additional grid of vertical and

horizontal framing elements were
designed behind the facades

https://www.flickr.com/photos/glemak/126724551/in/pool-hearst_tower
preservation
Remaining Structure
•Norman Foster architects chose to
retain only the façade of the old
structure, while allocating the outer
bay as retail space up to the third
floor

•The steel frame that had supported

the original structure has been
removed so that only one bay
remains to stabilize the limestone
façade

http://greendatabase.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/fp129064fp-hearst-lobup1.jpg
general structure
Column Free Span
• The building employs a hybrid
structure of concrete and steel
one-way span that allows a 40-foot
interior column free span http://ad009cdnb.archdaily.net

• The exterior structural system is

wrapped by a pewter-like linen
finish from the Swedish fabricators
Ovako

Area
•The typical office floors are 16,000
square feet in area with 9’ 6” ceiling

http://www.fosterandpartners.com
diagrid
Steel Tubes
Diamond web is composed of thirty-
four stories of steel tubes arranged
into a diagrid eight tiers high

•To provide stability under wind and

seismic loads the diagonal elements
are placed within a primary
orthogonal structural framework

http://www.fosterandpartners.com/design-services/sustainability/case-studies/materials-waste/
diagrid
Large Open Floor
Originated from the off center
elevator core to create larger
open floor plates with an
eastern view for editorial staff

Bird’s Mouth
As the grid approaches a 45
degree angle at the corners
of the building, the structure
forms what is referred to as
a “bird’s mouth” as the frame
opens up

10818623_10152923018271450_681496483_n.jpg
diagrid
Prefab Wideflange Steel
•Cives Steel used prefabricated
wide-flange steel sections to form
sophisticated six-ton node
connectors

•At these intricate nodes, six different

12-inch, H-column type diagrid
elements were bolted together

archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/1328283648-hearst10.jpg
diagrid
Stiffness
The required stiffness could not
deviate from a typical 5/8 inch
limitation nor 1/8 inch in certain
locations

Columns
•The only two columns on each floor
are necessary as the displaced
elevator core lengthened the open
floor plates in the east and west http://www.fosterandpartners.com/design-services/sustainability/case-studies/materials-waste/

direction
load tracing
Gravity
In gravity loads, the core
represents the primary
structural system and the
diagrid plays a secondary role.
The loads are transferred
through these systems down to
the caisson and spread footings
to the ground.
load tracing
Point
The elephant causes a point load
on top of the Hearst Tower.
Because loads are lazy, the loads
travel the shortest distance and are
accordingly dispersed to the
diagrids as well as the core.

The live load is transferred through

the diagrid system, the primary
system, down to the mega columns
and mega diagonals, and down the
caisson and spread footings to the
ground. The load is also transferred
through the core and down to the
caisson and spread footings as a
secondary system.
load tracing
Wind
The big bad wolf blows a
gust of wind towards the
Heast Tower. The wind is
trasfered through the
diagrid system, down to
the mega columns and
mega diagonals, and
down the caisson and
spread footings to the
ground. The diagrid
represents the primary
structural, and the
diaphragm floor plates
absorb some of the load
and transfer it to the core
as the secondary
structure.
curtain wall + cladding

There are as many as 30 different

window configurations with double pane
glass that has low E coating

To endure the event of a natural or

man-made disaster, lamination on
the inner pane is twice as thick
compared to typical curtain walls

Between the columns a glass mullion

type system was used
http://www.inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/hearst-tower-comp.jpg
sustainability
Hearst Tower is one of New York's first
LEED Gold commercial
office buildings

The efficient structural diagrid system

uses 12,000 tons of steel,
twenty percent less steel than a
typical steel skyscraper as it
eliminates the need for vertical
exterior supports
This system is composed of eighty-
five percent recycled steel

The basement houses a 14,000 gallon

reservoir that collects
rainfall which helps facilitate water
features and air handling http://buildingdb.ctbuh.org/class-image.php/userpics/10005/?width=1000&
height=800&image=/images/albums/userpics/10005/Hearst2a.jpg

units throughout the tower

curtain wall + cladding
As Cives was involved in construction
of the cladding, their
shared computer generated models
between the curtain wall
suppliers combined the information to
find the discrepancies

“By expressing the structure in a

sculptural way and casing it in
reflective stainless steel, it becomes
the identity of the tower” - Foster

httpkrg2uf.files.wordpress.com201111details001-e1320775854479.jpg
construction
Before construction began, a 3-D
computer model was created to
estimate the margin of flexure and
deflection the structure would
exhibit under various construction stages

Cives designated two of their plants to popularmechanics.com

fabricate the steel for the project so they

could alternate phases.

The installation of the cladding

system required a custom
double-tier monorail scaffold system
that was able to move
both vertically and laterally. http://www.popularmechanics.com/cm/popularmechanics/images/qJ/pmx0406Tower014_large.jpg
construction

The project was split up into six

phases and two detailers.

thirteen.org