Competition as part of United Architects

The interconnection of the five towers provides for unique commercial and public space. For example, at 800 feet in the air, approximately the 60th floor, a multi-level "City in the Sky" connects the towers with gardens, educational centers, shopping, cafes, a sports center, a broadcast center and a conference center. The possibility of very large connected floors invites not only new public functions at unprecedented heights but also large contiguous floor plates that can attract businesses back from the suburbs into Lower Manhattan. Throughout the complex, vertical sky gardens are arranged every five floors thereby enhancing the working environment and allowing a maximum amount of sunlight, saving energy and improving the views from within.

This single building built in five phases will not only be the tallest building in the world, it will also be one of the safest. Each of the sloping towers contains multiple independent stairways, connected every 30 floors by areas of refuge. From any point in every building there are many ways for people to exit, having the option of going down, and of moving horizontally into an adjacent building.

The site surface is returned to grade where pedestrians can walk across the site freely in all directions. Greenwich Street connects Tribeca with Lower Manhattan through the site. From Liberty, Cortlandt, Dey and Fulton Streets 60 story archways frame views connecting the city to the river. The proposed underground train station is designed to promote the flow of pedestrians, avoid bottlenecks and provide a wide range of intuitive connections to the streets, the plaza and the memorial. A major five-story civic space dedicated to the multi-modal connections of MTA, PATH and Air trains is located at the same subterranean level as the base of the memorial competition site, allowing a connected experience of monumental public infrastructure and the memorial.