The sophisticated and complex new glass TKTS Booth sits in the heart of New York City's Times Square. The show-stopping urban structure features a 27-step amphitheater-style red staircase covering a fiberglass shell, which, along with an expanded plaza area, more than doubles the amount of customer and pedestrian space.
The TKTS structure was designed by Perkins Eastman, and the surrounding plaza was designed by Williams Fellows Architects, both of New York.
Among the project's many challenges was designing an all-glass structure that could support the collective mass of 500 people on the booth's steps. To achieve this goal, the Perkins Eastman design team worked with fabricator ECKELT Glass, a subsidiary of Saint Gobain, to create all the project's custom laminated glass.
The structure's innovative combination of lighting and mechanical systems includes LED lights that illuminate the entire staircase from below, creating a shimmering, floating carpet of color and light. A geothermal system, which includes five wells that reach depths of 450 feet below Times Square, delivers a solution of chilled or heated water/glycol to support the air-handling unit for the booth's interior. The solution is also delivered to radiant panels that regulate the temperature under the stairs, preventing it from getting too hot in the summer or warming the surface to melt ice in the winter.
ECKELT Glass
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