Interview with Bruce Fowle
What makes the designs of Fox & Fowle different from those of competing firms?
We take pride in our ability to find the balance between economically viable buildings, social and environmental responsibility, and architectural design excellence. I'm sure many architects can claim that, but there are numerous tricks to the trade that you learn from experience working with knowledgeable and innovative developers and owners. With a clear understanding of the business side of skyscraper development, it is easier to invent ideas that will improve the practicality while enriching the design. Of utmost importance is the efficiency of the building in terms of the net-to-gross ratio, flexibility for tenant/user layout, elevator core, and operation. Being respectful of these elements while creating new and exciting architecture that is sustainable and appropriate to the scale and character of its context is where our reputation excels.
What significant projects are in the works right now, as far as high-rises go?
Well, of course, we're working with Renzo Piano Building Workshop S.r.l. on the New York Times Tower. This has been a wonderful collaboration where we were able to apply our high-rise experience and expertise to Renzo's vision. The project is now under construction. It promises to be one of the great buildings in New York. Next door to that, on 8th Avenue and 42nd Street, we've been working on a building called 11 Times Square, which is going to be either an office or a residential tower on a retail base. It will form the southern half of the western gateway to Times Square at 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. It will have much of the same razzle-dazzle spirit we've put into our other buildings in Times Square. We're also working with Fumihiko Maki on a new 35-story office building for the United Nations Development Corporation. It is just south of the UN complex and will initially be swing space for the UN to move into while they're renovating the original buildings. It will later become permanent offices for various UN-related operations
We have recently designed a number of high-rise residential buildings in Manhattan. The Helena, a 500-plus unit building, is under construction on the Upper West Side. We believe this will be the first non-mandated LEED-rated 80-20 housing (meaning that it's a mixed income rental building) project. We are design consultants for a 58 story mixed-use residential building on West 31st Street and architects for a 600 unit, two-building complex on 10th Avenue on the Upper West Side that we're just starting construction documents for. There are several others coming online. This is currently the hot market in New York.
What is your role in the design of the New York Times Headquarters?
That was true design collaboration. As I said earlier, it was Renzo's vision. He came up with the overall concept when he entered the design competition, but it's been a very exciting collaboration between the two offices to ensure that the building meets the functional criteria I mentioned earlier, is efficient, is buildable, and serves the clients' needs. Since there are two owners, the Times and the developer Forest City Ratner Companies, a major challenge was to design the building to suit the Times' program (located in the lower half) and meet market requirements for marketable tenant space in the upper half. Gensler Associates has been designing the interior space for the Times, so it's really been a three-way collaboration.
Is that building going to have terra-cotta on the exterior?
It's not technically terra-cotta. It's an aluminum silicate, which is an extremely dense and high-quality ceramic. It will be glazed with the same type of material that you'd see on terra-cotta to reflect light and ensure it's resistance to weather. Terra-cotta proved to be too soft a material. The silicate is a much more precise material that's used for special manufacturing purposes. We looked at everything from clay pipe to traditional terra-cotta and all sorts of exotic ceramics from around the world, but this proved to be both the strongest and most cost-effective. We were very concerned about durability, and chose ceramic primarily for that reason, as opposed to something like Kynar-finished aluminum which would start to chalk and fade over time. Ceramic will have a natural handmade look to it, which you will see especially from the inside looking out. The glaze will provide a reflection of the sky in different climatic conditions, so the color of the building will be constantly changing, which is all very much a part of Renzo's idea.
How about overseas? Do you have many projects over there?
After our work in Asia in the early 1990's we got so busy in the US that we pulled back our overseas efforts. Lately, however, we've been doing studies for a number of foreign projects. We've done preliminary design for a several towers in Beijing, South Korea, and Russia, all of which are pending. We are optimistic that those will move forward.
Do you see any new directions in your firm's designs?
I think in the last ten years there's been a softening of the high-rise building form. It used to be that developers, corporations and brokers insisted on simple rectangular box-like buildings. We've now demonstrated that the space works better if it has a little shape to it. The zigs and zags are now perceived to create interior design opportunities that tenants now realize adds character and a special sense of quality and identity. The larger corporations are more concerned about the quality of the work place than the uniformity, thus providing better, more productive environments for their staff. It's important for the recruiting of top employees... it's not only salary now. Interior environmental quality is becoming very significant. Tenants and employees are beginning to ask the questions: What kind of interior air quality do you have, how healthy is your building? Although sustainable components of a building are occasionally expressed on the exterior, this aspect of a building is not normally visible due to zoning and other constraints of the typical urban condition. Sometimes green design is a hard sell, but we can usually get the client's attention when we talk about productivity and health.
What does the concept of green buildings mean to you?
The state of the art is getting better and better. When we did the (4 Times Square), which was the first major commercial building of its size and type in the country and probably the largest in the world, there were a lot of things we weren't able to do then because of union problems and jurisdictional problems between trades. Much of today's technology was not available or was too costly because we were pushing the suppliers beyond the box. Most of that has now settled down, and many manufacturers are advertising how green their products are, how much recycled material they use, how little off-gassing results, how little embodied energy they use, and so forth. So things that we really had to push for at that point have now become fairly standard and non-proprietary. In the newer buildings, we're doing things like under-floor displacement air systems which have really changed the way we approach mechanical design and will, I think, eventually change the way all buildings are built. This system utilizes the raised floor to distribute air and goes through diffusers that are simply set in the middle of 2x2 removable floor panels. If you want to move your office or if you want to move your air conditioning supply, you just pick up the tile and move it to another place. The air is delivered at a higher temperature and a lower velocity, so you're saving the energy of forcing the air as well as cooling it. For a company with a high rate of "churn," there is a rapid payback resulting from the savings on of rerouting ductwork, shutdown time, and accessing floors from above rather than below in someone else's space. That's probably the biggest change. We're doing this system in the New York Times Building as well as co-generation, which is onsite energy production using natural gas - the cleanest burning fuel. Co-gen then produces steam, which is used for all heating and cooling systems throughout the building. It's very efficient. We're striving now to produce as much onsite energy as possible, and of course alternative energy whenever we can. The jury's still out on wind energy; but we continue to use photovoltaic and fuel cells, although both of these systems are of marginal benefit in New York City. All of the previously mentioned new buildings will be LEED rated, something that is rapidly becoming the norm. This is a very positive phenomenon.
There seems to be critical mass, now, going in that direction.
Yes, and I'm sure once green buildings are a viable option for most people the legal profession will begin to put pressure on owners of sick or unhealthy buildings to upgrade. It may only take one successful court case for someone who proved they got sick from being in a "bad" building to turn things around fast. Another initiative we are doing at the Times project (as featured in Metropolis recently) is a full scale mockup of a quadrant of a typical floor located at a site next to their printing plant in Queens. Lawrence Berkeley Labs is doing an analysis of the sun shading devices and working with several lighting manufacturers trying to figure out the best way to control the daylight dimming. We now we have the technology to provide more glass in buildings and let more natural light in, but if we can't turn off the lights automatically then we're not really saving energy. In fact, it's quite the other way around. So that, I think, will be a big breakthrough. Green technologies are definitely changing the way we design buildings
How has 9/11 affected the design of buildings?
Security related to terrorist activity is going against the trend of more open and transparent architecture. The tendency is not to try to prevent a catastrophic event like 9/11, but rather to minimize the impact of such an event. We're designing redundancy into the structures to prevent progressive collapse, and we're making sure the means of egress are secure and blast-proof, particularly at the lower levels so that if something does happen people can always get out. Obviously the widening of stairs so that firemen can get up while the people are trying to get out is something we're exploring along with many other lessons learned. In Asia, they've been much more stringent about firemen's access for years, where there's usually a separate elevator and stair system devoted to that purpose. Code revisions are being studied to improve sprinklering, providing safe areas and fewer transitions in stairs, and more direct access out; interconnecting stairs on the lower floors so that you have a choice if one stair is blocked; reinforcing ground floor slabs - these types of things are fairly commonplace now. It's important to note that as a result of 9/11, the public and the general press have become much more aware of the importance of architecture and good design. There's a greater awareness of how good architecture is achieved and what goes wrong with urban design when we don't have the right people managing it. This has permeated city government as well; the mayor has appointed key people at the city planning commission who are much more focused on design than has been the case in New York since the 1960's. Developers are taking notice and being more accountable because there's so much in the press about the prevailing mediocrity of architecture in New York. It's an emotional reaction to 9/11, trying to be more sensitive to the public - not just looking at the bottom line.
Are most of your projects fast-track, or design-build?
They're rarely design-build; we haven't done a design-build for a long time, and that's a good thing. We don't believe that's the best way to go about building a building. Every once in a while the economy will go sour and public agencies, facing tighter budgets, start thinking that's the best way to go. Then after they try a few, they never do it again. But fast-tracking is pretty normal here in New York, mainly because property is so expensive - everything's so expensive that if you don't take get construction going and start collecting rent as soon as you possibly can, it will seriously impact the cash flow. The negative side is that there's always some risk; You don't know for sure what the total cost will be, and if you start putting the steel out to bid before you've coordinated all your mechanical and your architectural work, for example, there are likely to be extra costs resulting from coordination. But the owners generally are willing to take that risk. If it is handled correctly, it does not negatively impact the quality of the architecture.
Would you please describe the fast-track process?
Fast-track construction facilitated by construction managers is something which has now been around probably forty years, and it has its pluses and minuses. Its pluses are: The construction manager becomes a member of the team, preferably during the design process so value engineering is something that occurs as a matter of course. Ideally, there are few surprises when you get final bids and are ready to start construction. It enables an owner to start awarding contracts before all of the documentation is complete, thus saving time. The first bid packages are normally the demolition and excavation contracts, which are the easiest to prepare, followed by the foundation contract, structural steel, elevators, and equipment that requires a long lead to ensure on-time delivery. The Construction Manager usually provides a schedule for when the design team has to have each bid package ready so the project can proceed in a timely fashion.
So you design the shell and the basic layout first, then worry about the interiors later?
Normally yes, and of course in most buildings in New York there's a different interior design firm that does the tenant work anyway, so we generally will do only core and shell and the public spaces except in special conditions where the client wants us to do the whole package, i.e. a corporate headquarters or a designed-to-suit condition. But more often than not it's a separate group, both in construction and design of the interior fit-out. If it's a speculative building, the owners will generally prefer to separate the interior design for a tenant fit-out from the core and shell because it is perceived to create a conflict of interest.
Thank you very much for this conversation.
Interview by Rick Bronson (June 2004).