Research Essays



Ford Foundation Building

New York, New York. USA
Roche, Dinkeloo and Associate, architects

Location

The Ford Foundation building is located between 42nd and 43rd streets in New York City several blocks southeast of the Chrystler Building. The lot on which it is built is nearly square (200 feet 9 inches by 202 feet 4 inches).

History


Physical Description

Materials:
Concrete: columns, load bearing walls, non-load bearing walls, floors (over cellular steel decking
Steel: I beams for spans, cellular decking for floors, weathering steel veneer (aesthetic and protective)
Glass (light admission)
Granite facing (aesthetic and protective veneer)

Dimensions of the system: based on a six foot grid and multiples thereof
Dimensions of Individual Members:
concrete columns: reinforced 6 x 3 feet solid
concrete walls: 1-1/2 feet thick
steel I beams: up to seven feet thick

The building is a concrete and steel structure twelve stories high. The building is oriented on the diagonal to take advantage of the outh light. The program for the building was smaller than the available space, and the leftover space was used to creat e a courtyard and atrium space. Most of the building's mass is located along its north and west sides while the rest of the space to the south and east is left to the atrium. At the tenth, eleventh and twelfth floors, the occupied space extends and wrap s around the border of the atrium, shrinking the skylight in the roof slightly and giving the atrium a more enclosed feeling without sacrificing much light. The offices all look into the atrium space and across to one another.

The building is based on a grid of six foot spacing. The structural elements are concrete and steel. The structural concrete ranges in size from bearing walls one foot thick to solid columns that are six feet wide by three feet deep. Concrete is used i n vertical compression elements (columns and bearing walls) and steel is used for all of the spanning within the structure carrying the loads to the columns or load bearing walls. The floors are concrete on steel cellular decking supported by steel I bea ms up to seven feet deep. The skylight is made of I beam trusses placed in alternating bands resulting in three sections, the middle being higher than the two sides.

Building Process


Structural Descripton/Aspects

Maximum Loads
Vertical:
Snow 30 psf
Occupants 100 psf
Dead Loads
Lateral:
Wind (0.3 x 90 mph = 27 psf)

Lateral loads from wind and the impacts of large flying objects are transferred from the exterior walls to the I beams that support the floors to the load bearing walls which wrap around the corners of the building giving them stability against such loads . This load is a moment which is resisted by the breadth of the bearing walls with their high moment of inertia and ultimately, the foundation.

Conclusions


Bibliography

  1. GA Global Architecture. xNA 737.K46 F87 1973.
  2. Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo and Associates 1962-1975. Yukio Futagawa. xNA 737. K46 F872 1973.
  3. Hozumi, Nobuo. Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo and Associates. The Ford Foundation Headquarters, New York, N.Y., 1963-1968. NA 737. K46 K48 1975.

Associated Buildings


Harrington and Shanaman
ARCH 461/561 Spring 1995

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