A look at the new New York Times building

Glen Hughes, president, Glenn D. Hughes Consulting Associates, Hessel, Mich., presented a case study on the New York Times building, "High Performance Energy-Efficient Daylighting: The New York Times Building Case Study," at Ecobuild America, Dec. 9, at the Washington Convention Center. He was the director of construction at The New York Times when the new headquarters was built. See story.

The 51-story buildingfeature an 800-foot curtain wall, a glass façade sheathed in sun-shielding ceramic rods and stairs linking 28 floors. The 77 percent glass building, at Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st streets, was designed by Renzo Piano to embody transparency, lightness, strength, and integrity.

The double pane glass has a high level of visual transmittance, Hughes said. "It gives people more natural light than any other glass that we couldhavepurchased at that point of time. We added glare and thermal protectionto the glass." The glass has VE13-2M low-E coating from Viracon on the inner surface of the outer pane. "The low-E coating truncates the UV by 93 percent and 60 percent of the infrared," Hughes said.

The building has 860 rooms in all. "The shape was designed with notches, so that it’s not squared-off," Hughes said. "It allows solar penetration to be more evenly spaced for all the occupants." The external façade of the double screen, a fixed sunscreen made of ceramic tubes, allowed the usage of clear glass during energy code calculation, he said. "If we didn’t have the tubes outside, there would have been too much heat gain. The floor to ceiling height decides how deep the light penetrates. Our building has 9.7-foot ceilings, and in some areas 10.5 feet."

The skylight over the news desk measures 60 feet by 50 feet. And an atrium, Birch Tree Garden, in the center of the building, measures 70 feet by 70 feet by 70 feet. The atriumallows the newsroom that surrounds it to get more natural light, Hughes said. "It has no roof, so it rains and snows on the birch trees."

The building's lighting power density is 72 percent less than energy code in the building, Hughes said. "It comes from daylighting and automated shades and dimmable lighting."

"We moved from a building that we had been in for 95 years to a Renzo Piano building," Hughes said. "The morale went up; people loved it."

A 4 percent to 7 percent productivity andhealth improvement can be derived from natural daylighting indoors, according to Volker Hartkopf, professor of architecture, Director Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Hughes said. "If you get even 1 percent, the system paid for itself in less than a year."

"In many ways, 77 percent of glass could’ve made us fail, but it didn’t," Hughes said. "It’s not how much glass you use, it's how well you use it to meet your energy efficiency goals and make your people comfortable."

“Energy efficiency matters,” Hughes said. “Buildings use 39 percent of total U.S. energy. Lighting is the single greatest opportunity for energy savings in commercial buildings. Building façade and daylighting fit right in there. We need to reduce energy use 60 percent to 70 percent by 2020 for residential buildings, and by 2030 for commercial buildings. We need to use renewable energy, such as solar."