The retrofit of the historic 345 Hudson Street office building adapts the Nordic idea of thermal networking to drastically reduce energy demand and carbon emissions. Heat recycling and sharing with nearby buildings cut energy demand by 30% and will reduce CO2 emissions by 90% by 2040, when New York City’s grid is scheduled to go all-electric.
Our multidisciplinary team led several aspects of the retrofit, including a new lobby connection to the adjacent building and elevator machine room structural repair and relocation. We also conducted forensic evaluation of the structure and façade, augmenting manual façade inspections with AI-driven T2D2 drone surveys to identify needed repairs or replacements. And we wired the building and the one next door to monitor vibration.
Building a cohesive team that could coordinate between the different projects as been critical to ensure success.
Benjamin Rodney, Hines
“Overlapping schedules and multiple design and construction teams running simultaneously, sometimes in adjacent areas, required intensive coordination,” says Yasser Khalifa, Thornton Tomasetti vice president and project manager. “Daily briefings and coordination within and between all teams made for steady progress and quick resolution of issues.”
The result? When completed this year, 345 Hudson will become one of New York’s most sustainable buildings and, says Benjamin Rodney, vice president with Hines (a partner of Hudson Square Properties), “It will showcase how ingenious design and engineering can help convert brown assets (buildings with excessive energy and carbon impacts) into green assets that are ready to take advantage of an all-electric, low-carbon energy future.”