The Condé Nast Building

by Kirsten Sibilia

When The Condé Nast Building at Four Times Square in Manhattan was completed in 2000, it received worldwide attention for being the first speculative office tower to be built in Manhattan in more than a decade. Moreover, Four Times Square was the tallest building in the country to adopt stringent standards for “green” – or eco-friendly – design in construction, operations and maintenance.

Thanks to the example set by The Durst Organization, eco-friendly design has slowly become more common in office and residential buildings. While Four Times Square received much attention due to its address and its striking visual presence, green design can have great impact in suburban areas like Westchester County, which are seeing rapid office space growth.

Lower operating expenses, greater return on investment, improved employee well-being and reduced environmental impact are just some of the rewards that green buildings deliver to the landlord, tenants and the region as a whole. Fox & Fowle is working on a number of suburban projects, notably a 40,000 sq. ft. headquarters for two non-profit organizations in Morristown, New Jersey, which will be a benchmark green project and may include geothermal heat pumps, grey water systems, photovoltaic panels, and fuel cells. The firm is also designing a mega-development in Norwalk, Connecticut, that will include office, hotel, and retail space as well as public green space. The project will become a model of environmentally responsible, resource-efficient design.

Think Big... And Small

Prior to Four Times Square, environmentally sustainable architecture was generally dismissed as impractical for large commercial projects. The approach, typically used for small-scale, regionally inspired structures, had never before been considered for a 1.6-million-square-foot glass and steel speculative office tower in a congested site like Times Square.

Yet, the important role commercial office buildings play in our society gives them a proportionately large impact on the environment. Approximately 5.3 billion square feet of office space is constructed per decade in this country, and office buildings consume about 27% of the nation’s supply of electricity, not including construction and upkeep, making sustainable design in office towers truly urgent.

The design features and lessons learned from Four Times Square are easily distilled and applied to the smaller, less urban projects typically found in Westchester County, and include:

Daylighting:
Special window glass and glazings (coatings on the window glass) can increase natural light and prevent solar heat from entering the building, reducing energy costs for cooling and lighting.

Fuel Cells for On-site Electrical Generation:
Office buildings are following scientific pioneers like NASA that use fuel cells to provide energy onboard the space shuttles. Highly efficient and low-maintenance, fuel cells also come with very few waste byproducts: only hot water and carbon-dioxide.

Gas-Fired Cooling Plant:
The central cooling plant is one of the most complex and important elements of modern office buildings. The gas fired plant at Four Times Square creates fewer emissions than the typical electrical or steam plant, and offers tenants significant operating cost savings.

Photovoltaic Cells for On-site Energy Generation:
Photovoltaic, or solar, cells are integrated into parts of the Four Times Square’s façade, making them affordable in a way that a roof-top field of solar panels never would have been.

Indoor Air Quality:
With growing anecdotal evidence connecting employee productivity, sick days and office air quality, Four Times Square alleviates the now-infamous “sick building syndrome.” A network of air filters and delivery systems that purge stagnant interior air and replace it with fresh filtered air, along with sensitive monitoring devices, ensure a healthier work environment.All of these groundbreaking applications can be transferred to projects in Westchester County. The same opportunities exist to capitalize on easily integrated applications in office parks as in urban skyscrapers. Suburban office buildings are often surrounded by busy roads and parking lots, and are contaminated by stale air similar to that found in more urban office properties.Developers, corporate executives, and architects alike must begin to recognize the benefits of erecting sustainably designed buildings in the suburbs. Seemingly simple steps, such as installation of photovoltaic panels or applying effective window glazings, are environmentally responsible, financially beneficial, provide a unique marketing tool – creating a more valuable building in every sense.

Kirsten Sibilia, Assoc AIA Fox & Fowle Architects

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