Bank of America Tower – New York Architecture
The Bank of America tower is a 54 storied $1,000,000,000 mega structure project located at One Bryant Park in New York, USA. This tower is designed by Architect Richard Cook of well known architecture firm Cook Fox Architects, this Eco-friendly mega structure is New York’s second tallest and the Third tallest building of United States and it is designed to be the most effective and Eco-friendly building of the world. As its name shows, Bank of America will be its core tenant. The 54th floor of the building stops at 289mts, and a main spire extends all along the height of the building till 366mts. Designed in essence of glass and steel, this building is heaving 3 escalators, 53 elevates and yet promises to just use half the electrical energy when compared to other modern skyscrapers.
Application Of Eco-friendly Technologies In Tower
The building has applied different Eco-friendly technologies just like floor-to-ceiling insulation glass to control temperature and increase daylight, and an automated daylight dimming technique.
Additionally, the building is designed in a real way that no any dark corners are kept in it. The most important issues of NYC which increased with the increasing skyscrapers are the raising surface area. With the development of tall skyscrapers, the surface area of the city receiving natural light also raises and therefore the city heat increases. When the day temperature is 29 degrees in New York, the empire state building contains a temperature of 37 degrees. Therefore the air conditioner expenditures increased substantially. But here, the building is receives lower amount of heat. Additionally, the building contains a large Air Filtration Plant at the 53rd floor. Air will enter into the building only from the top & be cleansed of its pollutants, 50 % of which will be distributed in the building in a spiral way, and rest will be thrown out for the town use, making the tower a huge air filter for Midtown Manhattan.
Click For 3D Diagrams Of Bank Of America
Image Courtesy: Cook + Fox Architects
Recycled Scrap Metal Used In Construction
he tower is designed mostly of recycled materials. Care has been taken that practically all of the materials are acquired from inside of a 80 km area to reduce the material transportation expenses. Additionally all the steel applied here is reused from discarded scrap metal, which is melted and eliminated of its impurities & then caste it into giant steel columns. Also the Bank of America tower is constructed using a concrete mix including slag, a consequence of steel blast heaters. The mixture applied in the building concrete has 55% cement & 45% slag. The utilization of slag cement cuts down damage to the natural environment by reducing the quantity of cement required for the building, which subsequently lowers the quantity of co2 (green house gas) generated via normal cement production, as well as imparts additional strength to the concrete columns. The Bank Of America tower alone eliminated 53 million tones of Carbon dioxide form ejecting out in the environment.
The Carbon dioxide sensors existing in the tower will sense increased amounts of Carbon dioxide in the tower and notify the authorities for required steps. Further, you will discover many terrace gardens & green gardens inside the tower itself that will work as a meeting area for people as cafeterias and sit outs and also purify the internal air of the tower. The building also functions a grey water process, which catches every drop of rain water and reuses it. There are large water tanks in 4 advanced floors and a large rain water collection tank for this reason. There are 54 large water tanks, known as ice batteries, 27mts under the earth surface below the tower that will use the nighttime earth’s cool temperature to freeze its water. This ice in the day time will be supplied to the Air conditioning systems and will outcome in powerful non-electric air conditioning. The building also has a 4.6-mw co-generation plant that will supply a part of the base-load electricity requirements. This on location electricity generation cuts down the major power transmission losses that are common of central electricity generation plants.
Nowadays, it’s regarded sensible to expend more capital on developing green and to invest at first on Eco-friendly technologies. Investing initially on costly treated glass & air ventilation and cooling techniques raises the development costs significantly but makes the design energy-efficient for a whole life.
Therefore the user consequently saves finally. Also the government offers grants for these Eco-friendly construction projects. The architect has designed the building with the simple concept of cutting down its operational expenses by 50% and is effective in doing so by increasing the project construction cost by 25%. Finally, the user saves money, and the architect gets more fame and much more money… of course…
You May Also Like: Design And Concepts Of Bank Of America Tower
About the Author
