Final Decision-World Culture Center

Posted in Uncategorized by jiafeifbeunsw on March 24, 2009

Finally, Our group decided to do the World Culture Center designed by Think Group Architects for the new World Trade Center site competition. This is a pair of 1665-foot open latticework tower structures that soar upward from a reflecting pool, resembling skeletons of the original towers. This two latticework towers, the tallest structures in the world, will rise where the World Trade Center once stood-surroudning, but never touching, the twin towers’ footprints. At ground level, there may or may not be reflecting pools, but there will certainly be memorials below grade. High up in the sky, at the points where the planes hit, there will be another memorial.

The innovative ideas in this project are breathtaking: the fact wind passes straight through the latticework, for instance, allows Think to install wind turbines which will generate enough power to run the whole elevator system. The engineering is extremly solid, and is designed to stay standing even if large chunks are vaporised; furthermore, because the latticework is made of huge steel beams, it’s more likely to break anything crashing into it, rather than be broken.

These towers are light, in many senses: open to light and the air, they are tall, but don’t cast oppressive shadows. They also keep the towers of light which so touched New Yorkers last year; beams can be sent up through the latticework and up to the heavens, this time exactly where the World Trade Center once stood.

In fact, the Think team has kept very much to the spirit of the competition, and simply indicated where the offices are going to go, without even vaguely trying to show what they might look like. Think has taken city streets and made them vertical: piling buildings on top of each other rather than alongside each other. The space is up in the sky, not down on the ground. It’s a radically new vision for the new century, and New York would be the envy of the world were it to play host to it.