1.
Topping out
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In building construction, topping out is a builders rite traditionally held when the last beam is placed atop a structure during its construction. Nowadays, the ceremony is often parlayed into an event for public relations purposes. Long an important component of timber frame building, it migrated initially to England and Northern Europe, a tree or leafy branch is placed on the topmost wood or iron beam, often with flags and streamers tied to it. A toast is usually drunk and sometimes workers are treated to a meal, in masonry construction the rite celebrates the bedding of the last block or brick. In some cases a topping out event is held at an intermediate point, in New Zealand, completion of the roof to a water-proof state is celebrated through a roof shout, where workers are treated to cake and beer. The tradition of pannenbier is popular in the Netherlands and Flanders and it stays in place until the buildings owner provides free beer to the workers, after which it is lowered. It is considered if it remains flown for more than a few days. The topping out traditions of the high-steel ironworkers, Topping Off. at the Wayback Machine. Http, //www. stp. uh. edu/vol68/160/news/news4. html Tree symbolizes campus growth, The Daily Cougar, Volume 68, Issue 160, Monday,28 July 2003, Topping Off at the Wayback Machine. National Review, December 23,2003 Richtfest. info A German language site about the topping out ceremonies, Topping out Roberts Pavilion Topping out the new athletic building at Claremont McKenna College
2.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
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Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP is an American architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm. It was formed in Chicago in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings, with a portfolio spanning thousands of projects across 50 countries, SOM is one of the largest architectural firms in the world. Their primary expertise is in commercial buildings, as it was SOM that led the way to the widespread use of the modern international-style or glass box skyscraper. They have designed several of the tallest buildings in the world, including the John Hancock Center, Willis Tower, due to their faithful following of Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohes ideas, Frank Lloyd Wright nicknamed them The Three Blind Mies. Notable SOM architects include, Edward Charles Bassett, Natalie de Blois, Gordon Bunshaft, David Childs, Myron Goldsmith, Bruce Graham, Gertrude Kerbis, Fazlur Rahman Khan. Lucien Lagrange, Walter Netsch, Larry Oltmanns, Brigitte Peterhans, Adrian Smith, indeed, Khan is responsible for developing the algorithms that made the Hancock building and many subsequent skyscrapers possible. Another notable SOM engineer is Bill Baker, who is best known as the engineer of Burj Khalifa, to support the towers record heights and slim footprint, he developed the buttressed core structural system, consisting of a hexagonal core reinforced by three buttresses that form a Y shape. Davis Allen, a pioneer in corporate interior design, had a tenure at SOM. Throughout its history, SOM has been recognized more than 1,700 awards for quality. More than 900 of these awards have received since 1998. In 1996 and 1962, SOM received the Architecture Firm Award from the American Institute of Architects, SOM is the only firm to have received this honor twic13 R+D Awards from Architect Magazine. In addition, a collaboration between SOM and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, The Center for Architecture, Science and Ecology, was honored with a fifth award. SOM has completed over 10,000 projects around the United States and in more than 50 other countries around the world, london, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Abu Dhabi. Smaller field offices supplement these in such as the Philippines. Burj Khalifa is the tallest man-made structure ever built, at 829.8 m, construction began on 21 September 2004, and the building officially opened on 4 January 2010. The towers architect and engineer was Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, george J. Efstathiou was the Managing Partner for the project. Bill Baker, the Chief Structural Engineer for the project, invented the buttressed core structural system in order to enable the tower to achieve such heights economically, Adrian Smith, who worked with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill until 2006, was the Consulting Design Partner. The primary builder is a joint venture of South Korean Samsung C&T, one World Trade Center, also known as the Freedom Tower, is located in Manhattan, New York City, and is 1,776 ft high, making it the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere
3.
Hudson Yards, Manhattan
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Javits Convention Center, and a financing plan to fund the various components. The centerpiece of Hudson Yards is a 28-acre mixed-use real estate development of the name by Related Companies and Oxford Properties. This new construction project is the largest of its kind, the railyard project broke ground on December 4,2012, the first tower, an 895-foot office building in the southeast corner of the site, opened on May 31,2016. The over-US$20 billion development will accommodate a projected 65,000 daily visitors when completed, the Citys plan was similar to a neighborhood plan produced by architect Meta Brunzema and environmental planner Daniel Gutman for the Hells Kitchen Neighborhood Association. The main concept of the HKNA plan was to major new development while protecting the existing residential core area between Ninth and Tenth avenues. To help facilitate development, the Citys plan called for an extension of the 7 <7> trains to a 34th Street subway station under Eleventh Avenue, a Hudson Yards Infrastructure Corporation would issue bonds against expected revenues. In January 2005, the New York City Council approved the 60-block rezoning, including the portion of the West Side Yard. In June 2005, the proposal was defeated. After the City rezoned the western rail yard and added it to the financing district, five developers responded to the RFP, Extell, Tishman Speyer, Brookfield, Vornado, and the Related Companies. Tishman Speyer won the bid in March 2008, Tishman Speyer entered into a 99-year lease with the MTA, paying $1 billion for the air rights. However, just two later, the deal broke down due to the late-2000s financial crisis. Not much later, the MTA chose the Related Companies and Goldman Sachs to develop Hudson Yards under the same conditions, in December 2009, the New York City Council approved Related Companies revised plan for Hudson Yards, and the western portion of the West Side Yard was rezoned. Following the rail yards successful rezoning, the MTA signed another 99-year lease to the air rights over the yard in May 2010. Groundbreaking for 10 Hudson Yards, the first building, occurred on December 4,2012, in April 2013, the Related/Oxford joint venture obtained a $475 million construction loan from parties including Barry Sternlichts Starwood Capital Group and luxury retailer Coach. A portion of the project was financed by the EB-5 investment program. The city had originally projected to receive $563 million from property sales by September 2015, consequently, the city has had to allocate $358 million since 2006 to pay off debt. But developers have paid the city $336 million since July 2014, the pace has quickened in recent years, with 57 buildings built or under construction in the area from 2006 to June 2015, indicating an improving balance sheet. After the Hudson Yards project was approved in 2005, the MTA received proceeds from the initial 2006 bond offering to pay for the subway to 34th Street, with funding assured, the MTA proceeded quickly to construction
4.
Pennsylvania Station (New York City)
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Pennsylvania Station, also known as New York Penn Station or Penn Station, is the main intercity railroad station in New York City. Serving more than 600,000 commuter rail and Amtrak passengers a day, Penn Station is in the midtown area of Manhattan, close to Herald Square, the Empire State Building, Koreatown, and the Macys department store. Entirely underground, it sits beneath Madison Square Garden, between Seventh Avenue and Eighth Avenue and between 31st and 34th Streets, Penn Station has 21 tracks fed by seven tunnels. It is at the center of the Northeast Corridor, a rail line that connects New York City with Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D. C. Intercity trains are operated by Amtrak, which owns the station, while rail services are operated by the Long Island Rail Road. Connections are available within the complex to the New York City Subway, additionally, if reopened, the old Hilton Corridor would recreate an indoor connection with Port Authority Trans-Hudson trains. The original Pennsylvania Station was built from 1901-1910 by the Pennsylvania Railroad, after a decline in passenger usage during the 1950s, the original station was demolished and reconstructed from 1963 to 1969, resulting in the current station. Pennsylvania Station is named for the Pennsylvania Railroad, its builder and original tenant, the current facility is the substantially remodeled underground remnant of a significantly more ornate station building designed by McKim, Mead, and White and completed in 1910. The original Pennsylvania Station was considered a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style, the station was moved fully underground, beneath the newly constructed Pennsylvania Plaza complex and Madison Square Garden arena completed in 1968. Until the early 20th century, the PRRs rail network terminated on the side of the Hudson River at Exchange Place in Jersey City. Manhattan-bound passengers boarded ferries to cross the Hudson River for the stretch of their journey. The rival New York Central Railroads line ran down Manhattan from the north under Park Avenue, the development of the electric locomotive at the turn of the 20th century made a tunnel feasible. The station would sit in Manhattans Tenderloin district, a historical district known for its corruption and prostitution. Beginning in June 1903, the two single-track North River Tunnels were bored from the west under the Hudson River. Electrification was initially 600 volts DC–third rail, and later changed to 11,000 volts AC–overhead catenary when electrification of PRRs mainline was extended to Washington, D. C. in the early 1930s. The same tube, with an inscription indicating that it had displayed at the Exposition, was later installed under water. Construction was completed on the Hudson River tunnels on October 9,1906, meanwhile, ground was broken for Pennsylvania Station on May 1,1904. Along with Long Island Rail Road trains, Penn Station saw trains of the New Haven and the Lehigh Valley Railroads
5.
Ninth Avenue (Manhattan)
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Ninth Avenue, known as Columbus Avenue between West 59th and 110th Streets, is a southbound thoroughfare on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Traffic runs downtown along the stretch from Chelsea to the Upper West Side. A one-block stretch of Ninth Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets is also signed as Oreo Way, the first Oreo cookies were manufactured in 1912 at the former Nabisco headquarters on that block. The buildings are separated in mid-block by the narrowest of access alleys, the repeated designs of three or four commercial speculative builders, using the same features and detailing, add to the avenues architectural unity. There are several generously scaled pre-World War I apartment buildings and the former Endicott Hotel, as well as a commercial block from the office of McKim, Mead. Between 77th and 81st Streets, Columbus Avenue borders the American Museum of Natural History, Ninth Avenue reappears in the Inwood neighborhood as a short two-way street in two segments interrupted by the New York City Subways 207th Street Yard. The addresses along this stretch from 201st Street to Broadway are continuous with the lower portion of Ninth Avenue. The Ninth Avenue Elevated was a train that ran above Ninth Avenue beginning in the nineteenth century. The lease for the line was assumed by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company on April 1,1903. The line ran until it was closed and dismantled in 1940 following the purchase of the IRT by the City of New York, Ninth Avenue and Columbus Avenue were converted to carry one-way traffic southbound in two stages. South of its intersection with Broadway the avenue was converted on November 6,1948, the rest to 110th Street was converted on December 6,1951. Former president Bill Clinton initiated a project to revitalize the 9th Avenue corridor centered on the Hells Kitchen area, several street fairs are held every year, including the Ninth Avenue Food Festival in May. Ninth Avenue is the setting of Saul Steinbergs View of the World from 9th Avenue, in the TV show Seinfeld, the street set on which most of the street scenes were filmed was based on Columbus Avenue. In the play Zoo Story by Edward Albee, Jerry claims to live between Columbus Avenue and Central Park, New York City portal Notes New York Songlines, Ninth Avenue, a virtual walking tour
6.
Long Island Rail Road
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With an average weekday ridership of 337,800 passengers in 2014, it is the busiest commuter railroad in North America. It is also one of the worlds few commuter systems that runs 24 hours a day,7 days a week and it is publicly owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, who refer to it as MTA Long Island Rail Road. The LIRR logo combines the circular MTA logo with the text Long Island Rail Road, the LIRR is one of two commuter rail systems owned by the MTA, the other being the Metro-North Railroad. Established in 1834 and having operated continuously since then, it is the second-oldest US railroad still operating under its original name and charter. There are 124 stations, and more than 700 miles of track and this service was superseded in 1849 by the land route through Connecticut that became part of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The LIRR refocused its attentions towards serving Long Island, in competition with railroads on the island. In the 1870s, railroad president Conrad Poppenhusen and his successor Austin Corbin acquired all the railroads, the LIRR was unprofitable for much of its history. In 1900, the Pennsylvania Railroad bought a controlling interest as part of its plan for access to Manhattan which began on September 8,1910. The wealthy PRR subsidized the LIRR during the first half of the new century, after the Second World War, the railroad industrys downturn and dwindling profits caused the PRR to stop subsidizing the LIRR, and the LIRR went into receivership in 1949. The State of New York, realizing how important the railroad was to Long Islands future, in 1966, New York State bought the railroads controlling stock from the PRR and put it under the newly formed Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Authority. With MTA subsidies the LIRR modernized further, continuing to be the busiest commuter railroad in the United States, the LIRR is one of the few railroads that has survived as an intact company from its original charter to the present. The LIRR operates out of three terminals, in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. Jamaica Station in central Queens is the hub of all railroad activities, expansion of the system into Grand Central Terminal is expected over the next few years. Major stations include, Pennsylvania Station, in Midtown Manhattan, is the busiest of the western terminals and it is reached via the Amtrak-owned East River Tunnels from the Main Line in Long Island City. The New York City Subways 34th Street–Penn Station and 34th Street–Penn Station stations are next to the terminal and it also connects LIRR with Amtrak and NJ Transit trains. Atlantic Terminal, formerly Flatbush Avenue, in Downtown Brooklyn serves most other trains and it is next to the New York City Subways Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center station complex, providing easy access to Lower Manhattan. A handful of trains run to Hunterspoint Avenue or onward to the Long Island City station on the East River in Long Island City. From Hunterspoint Avenue, the Hunters Point Avenue subway station can be reached for Midtown Manhattan access, the same subway trains can also be reached from Long Island City station at the Vernon Boulevard–Jackson Avenue subway station
7.
Reinforced concrete
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The reinforcement is usually, though not necessarily, steel reinforcing bars and is usually embedded passively in the concrete before the concrete sets. Reinforcing schemes are designed to resist tensile stresses in particular regions of the concrete that might cause unacceptable cracking and/or structural failure. Modern reinforced concrete can contain varied reinforcing materials made of steel, Reinforced concrete may also be permanently stressed, so as to improve the behaviour of the final structure under working loads. In the United States, the most common methods of doing this are known as pre-tensioning and post-tensioning, durability in the concrete environment, irrespective of corrosion or sustained stress for example. François Coignet was a French industrialist of the century, a pioneer in the development of structural. Coignet was the first to use iron-reinforced concrete as a technique for constructing building structures, in 1853 Coignet built the first iron reinforced concrete structure, a four story house at 72 rue Charles Michels in the suburbs of Paris. Coignets descriptions of reinforcing concrete suggests that he did not do it for means of adding strength to the concrete, in 1854, English builder William B. Wilkinson reinforced the concrete roof and floors in the two-storey house he was constructing. His positioning of the reinforcement demonstrated that, unlike his predecessors, in 1877, Monier was granted another patent for a more advanced technique of reinforcing concrete columns and girders with iron rods placed in a grid pattern. Though Monier undoubtedly knew reinforcing concrete would improve its inner cohesion, before 1877 the use of concrete construction, though dating back to the Roman Empire and reintroduced in the mid to late 1800s, was not yet a proven scientific technology. His work played a role in the evolution of concrete construction as a proven. Without Hyatts work, more dangerous trial and error methods would have largely depended on for the advancement in the technology. G. A. Wayss was a German civil engineer and a pioneer of the iron, in 1879 Wayss bought the German rights to Moniers patents and in 1884 started the first commercial use for reinforced concrete in his firm Wayss & Freytag. Up until the 1890s Wayss and his firm greatly contributed to the advancement of Moniers system of reinforcing, ernest L. Ransome was an English-born engineer and early innovator of the reinforced concrete techniques in the end of the 19th century. With the knowledge of reinforced concrete developed during the previous 50 years, ransomes key innovation was to twist the reinforcing steel bar improving bonding with the concrete. Gaining increasing fame from his concrete constructed buildings Ransome was able to build two of the first reinforced concrete bridges in North America, one of the first concrete buildings constructed in the United States, was a private home, designed by William Ward in 1871. The home was designed to be fireproof for his wife, one of the first skyscrapers made with reinforced concrete was the 16-storey Ingalls Building in Cincinnati, constructed in 1904. Many different types of structures and components of structures can be built using reinforced concrete including slabs, walls, beams, columns, foundations, frames, Reinforced concrete can be classified as precast or cast-in-place concrete. Designing and implementing the most efficient floor system is key to creating optimal building structures, small changes in the design of a floor system can have significant impact on material costs, construction schedule, ultimate strength, operating costs, occupancy levels and end use of a building
8.
Manhattan West
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Manhattan West is a 5,400, 000-square-foot mixed-use development by Brookfield Properties. The project consists of two office towers and two smaller residential towers, as well as a 1. 5-acre public park. The towers will be built on a platform over Penn Station storage tracks along Ninth Avenue, the buildings will be built close to the developing Hudson Yards region between 31st and 33rd streets. These two buildings have been proposed as of 2010, upon its completion the taller west tower will extend 995 feet up to its roof and will be one of the tallest buildings in New York City and the world. Ground was broken for the site in January 2013, as of May 21,2014, a permit for the Manhattan West building complex has been submitted and approved. Under the updated 2014 plan, the complex is set to be completed by 2020. By the end of 2014, a US$680,000,000 platform over Long Island Rail Road tracks between Tenth and Dyer Avenues, atop which will be the Manhattan West development, was completed. In October 2015, the Qatar Investment Authority invested in a 44% stake in the $4.5 billion mixed-use development project.6 billion upon completion. According to reports, the development project is part of a plan to redevelop the Hudson Yards area. The QIA was referred to as a bird for their investment in an area that has not yet come under widespread development. This strategy assumes taking on more development risk in the hope of better returns, as of May 2015, construction is progressing. The development plans announced by Brookfield Property Partners and QIA include five buildings, as of January 2017,1 Manhattan West is currently under construction. The future 67-story building is scheduled for completion in 2019 and law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate,2 Manhattan West, which reportedly won’t undergo construction until it ensures an anchor tenant, will be completed following the first tower and will include 2-million-square-feet. 3 Manhattan West, located at 401 West 31st Street, is a tower that is part of the Manhattan West project. When completed it will stand 62 floors and 702 feet to its height, in total it will have 844 units. According to mid-2016 reports,4 Manhattan West, a building, is still in the planning process. The development includes a building at 450 West 33rd Street that houses the Associated Press. When renovation of the building is done in summer 2016, it will be renamed 5 Manhattan West, the National Hockey League will also be moving its headquarters to the complexs One Manhattan West
9.
Brutalist architecture
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Brutalist architecture is a movement in architecture that flourished from the 1950s to the mid-1970s, descending from the modernist architectural movement of the early 20th century. The term originates from the French word for raw in the used by Le Corbusier to describe his choice of material béton brut. British architectural critic Reyner Banham adapted the term into brutalism to identify the emerging style, there is often an emphasis on graphically expressing in the external elevations and in the whole-site architectural plan the main functions and people-flows of the buildings. Brutalism became popular for educational buildings, but was rare for corporate projects. Brutalism became favoured for government projects, high-rise housing. In one critical appraisal by Banham, Brutalism was posited not as a style, Brutalism as an architectural critical term was not always consistently used by critics, architects themselves usually avoided using it altogether. More recently, brutalism has become used in popular discourse to refer to buildings of the twentieth century that are large or unpopular – as a synonym for brutal. The term brutalism was originally coined by the Swedish architect Hans Asplund to describe Villa Göth in Uppsala, designed in 1949 by his contemporaries Bengt Edman and he originally used the Swedish-language term nybrutalism, which was picked up by a group of visiting English architects, including Michael Ventris. In England, the term was adopted by architects Alison. The best known proto Brutalist architecture is the work of the Swiss architect Le Corbusier, in particular his 1952 Unité dHabitation, Brutalist buildings are usually formed with repeated modular elements forming masses representing specific functional zones, distinctly articulated and grouped together into a unified whole. Concrete is used for its raw and unpretentious honesty, contrasting dramatically with the refined and ornamented buildings constructed in the elite Beaux-Arts style. Surfaces of cast concrete are made to reveal the nature of its construction. Brutalist building materials include brick, glass, steel, rough-hewn stone. Another common theme in Brutalist designs is the exposure of the buildings functions—ranging from their structure, from another perspective, the design of the Hunstanton School included placing the facilitys water tank, normally a hidden service feature, in a prominent, visible tower. This style had a position in the architecture of European communist countries from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s. In Czechoslovakia brutalism was presented as an attempt to create a national, John Andrewss government and institutional structures in Australia also exhibit the style. In the United States Paul Rudolph and Ralph Rapson are both noted Brutalists, Walter Netsch is known for his Brutalist academic buildings. Marcel Breuer was known for his approach to the style
10.
Facade
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A façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. It is a loan word from the French façade, which means frontage or face. In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect from a design standpoint, from the engineering perspective of a building, the façade is also of great importance due to its impact on energy efficiency. For historical façades, many local zoning regulations or other laws restrict or even forbid their alteration. The word comes from the French foreign loan word façade, which in turn comes from the Italian facciata, from faccia meaning face, the earliest usage recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is 1656. It was quite common in the Georgian period for existing houses in English towns to be given a fashionable new façade, in modern highrise building, the exterior walls are often suspended from the concrete floor slabs. Examples include curtain walls and precast concrete walls, the façade can at times be required to have a fire-resistance rating, for instance, if two buildings are very close together, to lower the likelihood of fire spreading from one building to another. In general, the systems that are suspended or attached to the precast concrete slabs will be made from aluminium or stainless steel. In recent years more lavish materials such as titanium have sometimes been used, whether rated or not, fire protection is always a design consideration. The melting point of aluminium,660 °C, is reached within minutes of the start of a fire. Firestops for such building joints can be qualified, too, putting fire sprinkler systems on each floor has a profoundly positive effect on the fire safety of buildings with curtain walls. Some building codes also limit the percentage of area in exterior walls. When the exterior wall is not rated, the slab edge becomes a junction where rated slabs are abutting an unrated wall. For rated walls, one may also choose rated windows and fire doors, on a film set and within most themed attractions, many of the buildings are only façades, which are far cheaper than actual buildings, and not subject to building codes. In film sets, they are held up with supports from behind. Within theme parks, they are usually decoration for the interior ride/attraction/restaurant, by Ulrich Knaack, Tillmann Klein, Marcel Bilow and Thomas Auer. ISBN 978-3-7643-7961-2 ISBN 978-3-7643-7962-9 Giving buildings an illusion of grandeur Poole, the article outlines the development of the façade in ecclesiastical architecture from the early Christian period to the Renaissance
