Hearst Tower "Ice Falls"

The "Ice Falls" water feature is located in the Hearst Tower at 57th Street and 8th Avenue in New York City.

The feature was part of the Hearst Tower Project and was designed by James Carpenter Design Associates Inc. as a way to take advantage of the unique space and light possibilities present in the lobby of the original building.

The feature encompasses approximately 3,000 square feet and rises 3 stories to a mezzanine level cafe for the Hearst Corp. employees.

It uses recycled rainwater to cool the space in the summer and humidify it in the winter.

John Lewis Glass produced the more than 600 individual castings that make up the waterfall over a period of six months, often casting six days a week in order to deliver the glass by the proposed installation date.

A special track system was developed to produce the castings as efficiently as possible and annealing space was maximized by the use of custom steel cradles, which conformed to the prismatic shapes. In all, 20 tons of glass made its way from Oakland, CA to Manhattan.

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The hot shop crew completes the casting of one of the glass "planks"

Ricky watches the level of the glass while Juan waits for his signal to cut off the stream

The crew moves the castings along the track system towards the annealing ovens

The "last plank" is readied for annealing

A view of the custom annealing cradles

Larry casts one of the upper pool tiles

Casting the 180 vertical blocks

The cooling off period

Unmolding the blocks

Installation of the typical planks to the steel substructure

Installation of the vertical blocks

A view from the top