David Cooper

INVESTOR DAY 2015
DAVID COOPER, PRESIDENT, BUILDINGS AND CCO, U.S.
JUNE 10, 2015
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INVESTOR DAY 2015
JUNE 10, 2015
DAVID COOPER, PRESIDENT, BUILDINGS AND CCO, U.S.
Male:
All right. So while you’re enjoying your lunch, I’m just
going to talk about our role in the rebirth of New
York following the horrendous attack on us on
September 11th. And we have at this point that is
quite spectacular to view what New York has rebuilt
and recreated, and what we’ve been part of. And so,
I’m going to try and share with you.
It’s very difficult to really capture especially as an
engineer, not all that eloquent to capture the
emotions that 9/11 meant for to us being at least one
New Yorker. I was actually walking into our office
building on Fifth Avenue at that time and I saw the
plane heading south, very low which struck me as
odd, walking to get a coffee. When I came back on
to the street, we had the street viewed then at Fifth
Avenue to Trade Center and saw it on fire. Little did
I know that the plane I just watched heading south
was the one that hit the tower. And a few moments
later, when I was up in the office, the second plane
hit.
New Yorkers who lived through that, it’s just
obviously a scare that we’ll bear forever. And so the
opportunity part of salvaging what was the two
amazing buildings – in that day, they were the two
tallest buildings in the world. They were built in the
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60s and restored on 1970, and they were truly
inspirational, not just to New York, but to the
country as (my news as to) to what we could do in
the construction world. And it was a great – it was a
huge undertaking. It was a big site, 16 acres site.
And you can in the picture obviously the Twin
Towers, the other World Trade Center building is on
this overall 16 acre site. And across the street was
the original 7 World Trade Center to the north.
We’re actually right over here, in this location, from
here looking north. This back point is looking east.
But the destruction was rather incredible. Not just
the towers came down, 7 World Trade Center
collapsed as well. To this day, no one is quite sure
why. It suffered some damage from debris, but
pretty superficial, but it did test fire. And after the
two Twin Towers collapsed, the Fire Department
evacuated everybody from 7 World Trade Center
and did not fight the fire and just figured the
building would burn itself out as most buildings do.
But it collapsed and the only steel structure in a
sprint of building to do so in the U.S. and in the
world, I believe.
But it was quite rebuilding effort. And we were
structural engineers for 7 World Trade Center, the
original 7 World Trade Center building. And when
the building collapsed -- Larry Silverstein was the
developer of that property as well as he had recently
signed a lease to take over the operation of the entire
World Trade Center site. And so what he had was
fairly unencumbered to rebuild 7 World Trade
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Center, unlike the rest of the site which it was called
7 World Trade Center was operating independently.
It’s a private development. The rest of the site was
related to the Port Authority and public works.
And with the monumental nature of the event, quite
frankly, it became a very big public issue on what to
do with the site. So we embarked further design of 7
World Trade Center. Just quickly, I’m sorry. The
overall site – this -- that’s the boundary of the 16
acres, 7 World Trade Center to the north across the
street. The original towers, the ancillary support
buildings, the World Financial Center across the
street which we’re also the engineers for from their
origins in 1981, the Winter Garden which you can
see the damage from debris and we are right now
over here looking north.
So we started our work on 7 World Trade Center to
re-engineer it right away. Through our relationship
with Larry’s solution Silverstein, you know, who
worked on original towers who we’re just appointed
to the project, along with the architects Skidmore,
Owings & Merrill. And that work began in earnest
in 2002. And while that design work was
undergoing by Port Authority, and in counsel with
the New York State, and Larry Silverstein to develop
a design competition to see what should be rebuild
on this site. And obviously, there was a lot of
questions about whether you want to build a tall
building again and will people occupy really tall
building, and what’s the – which of the whole site
being memorial, what should be done on this site.
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So there was a competition done while we were
working on developing 7 World Trade Center. And
once that competition was done and it was decided
what the program would be, there was a separate
design competition for the memorial which was an
international competition with about 5,000 entries.
And I’ll talk more about that in a minute.
But as you can see, we started the work in 2002.
The original plan was to have the entire site rebuild
like 2015. The 1 World Financial Center, the
Freedom Tower, it was called then. The 1 World
Trade Center was supposed to be done by 2008. But
as you might expect in a very public contentious
process, financially challenged, the insurance claims,
funding, infrastructure, complexity of the site and
just a tremendous amount of public scrutiny, things
did get delay. We also saw out there financial
collapse in 2008, 2009.
So here we are today, substantially complete in
2015, but still ways to go and we’re still quite
involved through all of it. So 7 was the first tower to
get built and that’s directed after winter straight
ahead. The tower across this – the farthest tower
you see, the West Tower. 7 World Trade Center was
the first one to get reconstructed. And where the
challenge is that with the lower floors, the lower 10
floors of that building, the original building as well
as the new building was the -- kind of assume
substation, the utility electric power company
substation have powered all of Lower Manhattan.
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So there was a tremendous amount of challenge
about developing – having then rebuild that
substation doing a construction above it, and also,
taking all the loads down at the building with a new
resilient structure and bypass their substations and
do that coordination.
The tower is a very similar structural concept of 1
World Trade Center. It’s a concrete core and a
perimeter steel framework. I’ll talk about that in a
moment. The interesting thing is in New York,
when you look at the construction of 7 World Trade
Center, you don’t see a concrete core. When you see
it, the structure, the steel structure is going up. And
in New York, within regulation, the traditional
method of building a building was you put in the
steel first, then you follow with a concrete second.
And that’s unusual to anywhere else. So that’s one
of the complexities that we had to deal with in terms
of understanding the design and construction
sequencing.
So as compared to The Shard in London which had
the similar concrete core and a proven steel frame,
you see the concrete core coming up first and ahead
of the steel structure. So 7 World Trade Center, One
World Trade Center was built in our minds
backwards, steel first followed by concrete, with a
concrete core. But the next building is going up, the
second – World Trade Center Two is going to
reverse that as the city has adopted some more
modern practices and codes.
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So this was some of the master plan competition for
what should be developed on this site. Some kind of
crazy ideas, some interesting ideas, but ultimately,
architect by the name of Daniel Libeskind won the
competition for what master plan should be. And his
concept was four office towers around the memorial
park with a cultural center and a transportation hub.
So you could see the World Trade Centers 1, 2, 3
and 4; a memorial plaza; there’s a performance hall
back here; and there’s the train station – train hub
back here.
I should add that while we got involved on the
structure site for the redevelopment, their
transportation business was also hired to help
manage and master plan all of the railing
constructions that got destroyed ante the rebuild for
the PEP trains and the subway lines. So it was
actually a – it was not just a story about our
structural engineering on this site, but we were very
involved with transportation side as well.
So that was the original concept. You can see the
World Trade Center had a bit of a different shape
than what it ended up. But what ended up was a
very similar concept just some different architecture
on World Trade Center One. That was primarily due
pragmatic reasons. This building had to be
commercially liable. And quite frankly, I think the
beliefs and concepts as it was getting developed
proved to be not a problem with everybody. It was a
very (ostentured) core. It was an outstanding core.
And when you get to the buildings, the site
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symmetry is important for a structural stability
purpose. So that became a pragmatic issue.
But Libeskind and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
worked together to come up with a new design for
World Trade Center One. But otherwise, the plan is
the same, the memorial park, the memorial museum
entrance, the transportation hub and a cultural center.
And Libeskind stayed involved in overseeing the
overall site of different architectural hires to do each
of the buildings. So Tower One is Skidmore,
Owings & Merrill. Tower Two was Foster and I’ll
talk about that in a minute – a little bit later. Tower
Three was Richard Rogers out of the U.K. And
Tower Four is KPF.
We are the structural engineers for all of the work
here except the Tower Four and except for the above
ground collar (covered) trenches. We’re doing all
the below-ground work. And there were a lot of
challenges with all of that and I’ll talk about some of
that. So this is us rendering, I guess, that during
construction, what you can see Tower Four well
under way. It was one of the first towers built. It
was the first tower completed. Tower One well
along. Tower Two, over there, taking up two just
grade level because all of the underground had to get
this line and built, because all of the underground is
interconnected. And so, we would – all the
engineering below grade had to get completed so
that tower designs had to be done, so that
foundations could be designed and all the belowgrade work installed.
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So Tower Two was taken up grade level and then
stopped because of the commercial issues with their
financial collapse. Tower Three was taken up by the
12th floor and stopped, and just restarted again last –
I think in October of 2014 when they’ve (landlord
and tenant). Tower Two has announced just
yesterday that they’ve (landlord and tenant) – that
building is now progressing with a completely
different design.
So One World Trade Center was quite a project, a
couple – quite a few challenges. Number one,
everybody in the aftermath of the collapse said we
need to re-bend the codes. We need to look at what
we wanted to do in terms of building resiliency, an
operational resiliency; fuel oil system; structural
systems; stair widths, having dedicated stairs for fire
members because one of the things they found was
the firefighters had trouble getting up the building
because everyone is coming down the building.
Some of the stairways were completely blocked off.
Some of the infrastructure was destroyed, limiting
firefighting capability in the building.
So there were lots of things that happened that have
to be learned from the collapses of one and two and
seven, and so, everything was influx. And so our
challenge was to design a building that would be
future proof, that would be commercially viable and
stand up to what the future codes were going to be.
Not an easy thing. Architecture was demanding and
so the (city) requirements were demanding. The
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Port Authority requirements were demanding. It
was all under public scrutiny. And so it was
interesting process, to say the least.
But a couple of things, One World Trade Center
very much respect the original Twin Towers. It is
1,776 feet to the top of the spire and the castle and
tall buildings were over an habitat has different ways
of measuring heights of buildings. But as long as its
spire is not (protruded), but they think it’s integral
with the structure and not just a bolt-on, it counts
into the height of the building. So that’s one
measure. So that makes it the tallest building in the
western hemisphere. That’s 1,776 footmark.
The roof line is 1,368 feet. It’s the same elevation as
the original World Trade Center so that’s respectful
of that. The base of the tower is 200 by 200 which
are the dimensions of the original World Trade
Center towers in an inch square so it’s respectful of
that. But then the design, the twist noticed spire
intended on the design versus a straight rectangular
form is at the top-square – it’s all set 45 degrees
from the bottom square. And when you click those
corners, it creates these triangles. So in the middle
of the building, it creates an octagon.
But it’s respectful in many ways to the original
World Trade Center in height, roof level height and
lower level. You’ll see down here, in the lobby, and
then this is a zone of (semi P). This is – again, this
is really a structural transfer zone, and then a (P
zone), and it’s the top bend. When you look at One
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World Trade Center, it all looks the same from street
up to that – up to the point where you start having
the glass. But that’s the brightness of the two
different forms in there which is; one is the structural
(MEP) space and one is the – and below that, at the
bottom, 60, 70 feet is the lobby.
This is similar to 7 World Trade Center. It is a
hybrid structure. So the original World Trade Center
was all steel construction. And this is core – a
concrete core with a steel perimeter frame that
together works to withstand the wind loads and
lateral forces as well as the gravity loads on the
building. But one of – in many respects, it’s a bit
(top) from a standard structure. You might have
seen this in type of structure in earlier versions of
very tall buildings. But there are a lot of
enhancements to the structure for security purposes
which I can’t talk about, and some of which I don’t
even know.
There’s a tremendous amount of work done on
what’s the level of threat would be to the building
and what’s the best way to mitigate that threat in
terms of design and resiliency. And again, in a
pragmatic cost-effective way because it had to be a
commercially viable building. There were things
that are visible when you walk into that building, in
terms of the massiveness of some of the concrete
elements and the structural elements. And a lot of
attributes of that are invisible and not known which
is which should be.
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Some of the construction, as you can see, this is the
top. This is the lobby level and this is the top known
as the mechanical transfer. It’s hard to tell from the
scale but very – some of the unique geometry from
some of the structural requirements – some of these
are really large structural transfer mechanisms that
were very especially challenging to engineer. But
again, you could see – you don’t see the concrete
core coming up. You see the steel going up first,
followed by the concrete core comes afterwards.
So I did talk about – we’ve been talking about the
challenge around the security, resiliency. The World
Trade Center is in its (classroom) for progressive
collapse, force collapsing causing the floors below to
collapse. So the question was how do you prevent
progressive collapse, how many columns should be
able to fail and still maintain the building upright,
and all thoughts with the stairs as dedicated stairs,
elevators – dedicated elevators for firefighter’s
access, all of pieces as well. So there were a lot of
things in collapse and we worked very closely with
the city.
The city was going through its own code adoption
process which working to international mechanical
and electrical codes; and structural codes versus
New York City which had its own code dating back
from 1968. So there were just a lot of things in way
which caused it to be extremely challenging process
and time-consuming process. But there’s a lot of
diligence among all the stakeholders to come to
conclusion and to grab the best way forward.
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Three World Trade Center is another building under
construction. You see the steel is a bit – I mentioned
it started to work again. It’s about all too soon a 3
million square feet. One World Trade Center is 2.5
million square feet. But it’s a lot shorter than One
World Trade Center. And it’s loaded with 80
storeys. But again, working with world class
architects – that’s Richard Rogers, the phenomenal
architect out of U.K. Each of these buildings has a
world class architect which has its own unique
requirements to satisfy their vision, and working
with them to satisfy their vision.
Two World Trade Center was announced just
yesterday. That’s going to be in far corner pass
where we could see the structural spires of the
(Cortland) traveler's train shed and the void between
that in the next – in the (Misny) building pass it.
Two World Trade Center is going to rise and this
could be just almost as tall as the One World Trade
Center. And it has a new architect. The active
tenant is Murdoch and News Corp, and they were in
locked on this really high-end global architect called
BIG, Bjarke Ingels. It’s the architect’s name out of
the Netherlands. And it’s going to be a very special
building as well.
We’re just embarking on that now. We did
completely the design of this World Trade Center
Tower Two with Normal Foster. We’ve got built up
to the ground level and capped as I told you. And
now, the challenge is to take a totally different
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building design and re-use the foundation and
everything below grade, and figure out how to get
that all to work properly. But we just thought at the
design of this building in (earnest) about a month
ago.
And then we get to the memorial. Memorial – I’m
going to talk about the memorial. I’m actually going
to read what the architect who created the memorial
wrote in his design submission. Michael Arad was, I
believe, about 28 when he developed the concept of
memorial. He partnered it up with a landscape
architect. He was an architect, the building’s
architect. He worked for KPF for a couple of years.
But he did this on his own without a firm behind
him. He was awarded this. He won the competition
out of a field of 5,200 entries internationally. I think
he was 28, maybe 29.
And I found this – it’s going to take a minute and if
you’ll indulge me and read what he wrote because
he’ll be able to explain it much better than I can.
The memorial proposes a space that resonates with
the feelings of loss. I’m sorry. I had to repeat. The
memorial proposes a space that resonates with the
feelings of loss and absence that were generated by
the destruction of the World Trade Center and the
taking of thousands of lives on September 11, 2001
and February 26, 1993, which was the date of the
first bombing of the World Trade Center. It is
located in a field of trees that is interrupted by two
large voids containing recessed pools. The pools are
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set within the footprints of the Twin Towers. A
cascade of water that describes the perimeter of each
square feeds the pools with a continuous stream.
They are large voids, open and visible reminders of
the absence.
The surface of the memorial plaza is punctuated by
the linear rhythms of rows of deciduous trees,
forming informal clusters, clearings and groves. To
its annual cycle of rebirth, the living park extends
and deepens the experience of the Memorial.
Surrounding the pools on bronze parapets are the
names. The enormity of this space and the multitude
of names underscore the vast scope of the
destruction. Standing there at the water's edge,
looking at a pool of water that is flowing away into
an abyss, a visitor to the site can sense that what is
beyond this parapet edge is inaccessible
The memorial plaza is designed to be a mediating
space; it belongs both to the city and to the
memorial. Located at street level to allow for its
integration into the fabric of the city, the plaza
encourages the use of this space by New Yorkers on
a daily basis. The memorial grounds will not be
isolated from the rest of the city; they will be a
living part of it.
It’s a – I mean, of all of the buildings that were
involved down here, the memorial is the most
intense and it is a quite spectacular space. I hope
you all get the chance to walk through the Memorial
Park and get into the museum. In the museum itself,
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the remnants of the original World Trade Center
Tower – that’s the entry way to the museum where
you see some of the original structure.
This is – we didn’t talk about the underground. But
the whole 16-acre site is a slurry wall bathtub
holding up to Hudson River, and that bathtub we
were part of the engineering – a part of our
engineering was to reinforce that bathtub to make
sure it held up when all the infrastructure inside was
taken out because all those slabs that stand on the
ground were holding up those – were supporting
those walls from falling in. So we have to support
those while everything is excavated and rebuilt. So
that’s just an exposed version or exposed element of
the slurry wall with tied bags into the ground – into
the earth to hold it up.
The overall design which was very sustainable
project as well and our structural engineering is not –
is a limited in its contribution to structural building
and development sustainability, but we did our part,
reconstituted materials, fly ash and steel, local
construction. We did whatever we could to help
contribute to the sustainability of the development.
And most of the site is rebuilt.
But overall, between four, five incredible architects,
world class architects, Port Authority, the public
process, the commercial rigors of the job, the public
scrutiny of the job that was tremendously complex.
It took a lot of patience and leadership on our
structural teams part to get through it at its peak. We
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probably have about 60 to 70 engineers working on
the project. It doesn’t sound like a whole lot for
what was done. But a lot was in New York at that
time. It was about 100 people. So it’s a big chunk
of our capacity. And they worked really, really hard
and diligently, sacrificing a lot of personal time
because they all believed in the project.
That’s it. It’s quite a complex part of rebirth. Lunch
and dessert is out on the patio. So I’m happy to
answer any questions, point anything out to you out
there. There are also a lot of buildings that we can
see that are ours in the neighborhood beyond the
World Trade Center site. But if you have any
questions before we go outside for dessert, I’m
happy to answer them.