WTC Awarded 2015 Best Tall Building

One World Trade Center (WTC) was awarded the 2015 Best Tall Building Award for the U.S. from The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). WSP, a global engineering and professional services organization, served as structural engineer for the 104-story office tower on behalf of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The CTBUH Awards consist of an independent review of new projects and are judged by a prestigious panel of experts.   The goal is to recognize projects that have made significant contributions to the advancement of tall buildings and the urban environment, while exhibiting processes or innovations that have added to the profession of design. Candidates must also enhance the cities and the lives of their inhabitants. The Best Tall Buildings have been named from each of the four competing regions in the world, for the nominees representing a total of 33 countries.

Resting on the 16-acre World Trade Center site, the One World Trade Center is a landmark for New York City. The buildings podium has a square footprint that matches the dimensions of the original World Trade Center towers, while its roof parapet heights also symbolically reference the heights of the original buildings. The tower’s eight stainless-steel edges also recall the reflective corners of the original twin towers.

“One World Trade Center is of undeniable importance to the Americas as well as the World. The building had high design expectations which the jury felt were met and exceeded,” noted the CTBUH judges.

“As the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, soaring to a symbolic height of 1,776 feet, One World Trade Center has become an immediate iconic fixture of the Manhattan skyline,” commented David Cooper, P.E. president of U.S. Property & Building sector and chief commercial officer for WSP | Parsons Brinkerhoff. “We are honored to have participated in the redevelopment of the entire World Trade Center site and thrilled to see One World Trade Center recognized by the CTBUH as the Best Tall Building in the USA for 2015.”

“One World Trade Center is a unique shape, and it presented a challenge for designers. The footprint starts square, but the corners are gradually cut away from the first office level until it squares off again at 145 feet, rotated 45 degrees. The towers height and slenderness imposed very high requirements on the structures height and stiffness. The strength of the concrete is 14,000 psi, the highest ever poured in NYC,” said Ahmad Rahimian, director of building structures at WSP and principal-in-charge of structural engineering for One World Trade Center.