Libeskind's "wedge of light" WTC design isn't what you thought. Specifically, if you thought that sunlight would shine down on the plaza at precisely the interval between the time the first tower was hit, and the time the last tower fell...no. That's not what Libeskind meant after all. Actually, there would be shadows, it turns out. From other buildings! So funny, so pathetic.
posted by luser on May 1, 2003 - 10 comments

Reader-submitted designs for the WTC I know I'm going to hell for saying this, but some of these are tremendously funny...
posted by oissubke on Dec 4, 2002 - 74 comments

Fireproofing Faulted in Trade Center Collapse... Fireproofing failures -- rather the impact of the plane crashes -- probably caused the World Trade Center towers to quickly collapse, architects and engineers told a federal panel today.

"The insulation is going to turn out to be the root cause," said James G. Quintiere, a professor at University of Maryland's Fire Protection Engineering Department who analyzed the fireproofing in the two towers.

Also worth reading is NY Fire Chief Vincent Dunn's assessment, "Why the World Trade Center Buildings Collapsed".
posted by zerolucid on Jun 27, 2002 - 16 comments

Sacred Commerce? Funny, I walked daily to work past the World Trade Center, and have been in the Middle East more than once, but it never occured to me to connect the WTC with Islamic architecture until I read this.
posted by MidasMulligan on Dec 31, 2001 - 1 comment

3-D imagery from NOAA of the crater at ground zero, engineers are using them to find the location of elevators and support structures located beneath the rubble.
posted by owillis on Oct 2, 2001 - 6 comments

From safety to where. This article provides a great, in-depth look at the World Trade Center from an architectural standpoint. Beginning with its lead architect, a Japanese man who suffered himself from the racism of the WW2 era, it goes over the structure of the buildings and reasons why the center withstood the 1993 bombing -- and, for a while, the impacts of the two hijacked planes -- and what the future for New York and the businesses affected may hold. (Thanks to overmorgen for the link.)
posted by moz on Sep 26, 2001 - 5 comments

Design choice for tower helped save lives : via FARK - can you imagine what would have happened had the planes hit the base of the towers?
posted by Mossy on Sep 12, 2001 - 5 comments