Thornton Tomasetti honored by ACEC-NY

Thornton Tomasetti has been recognized by the American Council of Engineering Companies of New York (ACEC-NY) with a Platinum 2014 Engineering Excellence Award in the Structural Systems category for the Brookfield Place Entry Pavilion project in Lower Manhattan. The award was presented to the project team on March 29th at the Engineering Excellence Awards Gala. Completed in the fall of 2013, the glass-and-steel entry pavilion features a pair of 53 ft. tall funnel-shaped, sculptural steel columns that support the structure. It was designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects with Thornton Tomasetti serving as the structural engineer. For more than 40 years the ACEC-NY Engineering Excellence Awards program has been honoring engineering consulting firms for design achievements of superior skill and ingenuity. More than 60 firms submitted projects this year, which were judged on a rigorous set of criteria, including complexity, innovation and value to society. The new entry pavilion is part of a $250 million renovation of the mixed-use Brookfield Place (formerly World Financial Center) intended to expand its retail and public space. Thornton Tomasetti was retained by Brookfield Office Properties, the owner, as the lead structural engineer for the 8,000 s/f pavilion. The firm worked with Pelli Clarke Pelli, the architect for the project, and the steel contractor, Metropolitan-Walters LLC, to develop the complex geometry of the structure, which consists of two columns constructed of seamless interwoven steel pipes. Thornton Tomasetti and Pelli Clarke Pelli were part of the team in the 1980s that designed the Winter Garden atrium, to which the new pavilion is connected. Thornton Tomasetti also performed repairs to significant portions of the structure after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Designed to accommodate an estimated 100,000 pedestrians daily, the pavilion is linked to the underground passageway from the World Trade Center and the Fulton Street transportation hubs. Because the pavilion sits atop a new underground passageway, existing train tunnel relieving platform and a former pedestrian bridge pile cap, Thornton Tomasetti's engineers had to focus on just two points of contact for the columns underground. This challenge greatly influenced the design and placement of the steel columns.