Photo by Don Hamerman
In his first job after graduation, Carlos Valverde Rojo, BARC ’07, MARC ’10, spent two years designing a single staircase for a private home in Colorado.
“I hated that I wouldn’t be able to show it to anyone,” he says. “I wanted to get into bigger, more public projects.”
There is perhaps no bigger or more public stage than the focus of his current job: construction manager for the 70-floor 3 World Trade Center, one of five new skyscrapers in the new complex being built at Ground Zero. Carlos talked to us about turning a scar into a statement.
A Tower as Tribute
One of the project executives was interviewed by a news station a few months ago and revealed that his brother passed away in North Tower that day. None of us knew. Here you have a guy who is working on the construction of one of the towers that will stand where his brother passed away. It was a powerful moment.
The Mission
Those images of 9/11—the planes, the smoke. Every time I see those images, it is gut-wrenching. I can’t even begin to imagine the horror of what those people went through. There is a hole that has to be filled, and it comes with a sense of mission and pride that we are working to fill it.
A New Build Approach
The Twin Towers were designed with structural steel on the perimeter of the building that was load-bearing. Our structural system carries the weight in the middle. And we are building the Tower 3 core first—so there is literally a concrete core rising up in the sky before the steel connects to it. Only one other building in New York City has ever been built that way.
Standing Tall
No one will truly understand the power of this effort until they see a 70-story tower rising from the ashes.
—Dan Morrell
