Stair of the Week: New York Times Building
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06. 2.08
It doesn't look as dramatic a some of the stairs we have shown on this site, does it? In fact, the story of this stair is pretty remarkable. It is in the New York Times Building, designed by Renzo Piano with FXFOWLE, where we had a tour conducted by David Thurm, Vice President and CIO.
The corner of a building is usually given over to an office for some big honcho; at the New York Times building it is given over to an open communication stair that serves that one purpose: to help people work together and communicate better.
Nobody does that on this scale, for a couple of reasons: it is expensive, (it is separate from the required fire exit stairs) and the fire codes don't allow you to connect more than two floors together to control smoke. So how did they get away with it?
Look at that black reveal just below the floor level in the picture above. Every second floor has this- it is the slot for a horizontal fire shutter that slams shut when the fire alarm goes off. (Hopefully slowly enough that someone standing on the stair doesn't get cut in half). Notice how it cuts through the handrail and guard as well.
That is an incredible amount of effort and ingenuity (not to mention money) simply to let people communicate better and get a little exercise. However, according to David Thurm, that is the whole point of the building: to change the way people work.
More on the Times Building to follow.
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19 years ago, when I was helping my employer (a smallish financial company) design our 2 floors (10th & 11th) of office space in a 12 story building, we made a (relatively) elaborate staircase the central design feature. It was one of the best decisions we made. It was visually stunning, it was energy efficient, and it improved productivity. The Times staircase covering more than 2 floors is all the more impressive, but I would highly recommend high visibilty "welcoming" stairs to anyone designing office space.
The building I currently work in has a nice 2 story lobby, with visible balconies on the second floor. I am sure many more people would walk up, rather than use the elevators, if the stairs were obvious and attractive, rather than just built to "fire code".
I applaud this stair. Too often the stair of the week recieves accolades for only style or a token green material. This stair is innovative.
Too long have we been forced into elevators, or cruelly un-welcoming fire-escape stairs to move from floor to floor. The central stair-case could greatly speed travel between floors, and lead to people walking more!
This entire building is incredible. The lobby is beautiful with it's own garden oasis and an amazing digital art installation that updates with comments posted on the NYT website.
It really fosters a sense of community and comfort that most offices couldn't even imagine, let alone implement.
After seeing the building from the inside, I must agree that it's really quite unique. All its elements mix design with efficiency, from the daylighting controls to the anti-glare window coating, the wall-to-ceiling glass offices and of course the stairs.
It's really a testament to good design. Although, a LEED certification surely wouldn't hurt.