april 16 draft
Sustaining the grid:
The Western Energy
Exchange
San Francisco, California
A thesis project by Mary Rasure
Master’s Degree Candidate, University of Oregon School of Architecture
Table Of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
OCCUPANTS
The Client
The Investors
The Brokers
The Traders
The Market Makers
The Clerks
The Regulators
The Onlookers
Security
SITE
The Region
City Selection
History
Character
Geography
Business
Eight Important buildings in San Francisco
SITE SELECTION
Attitudes about historic preservation (to be written…)
PRESCEDENTS
Scope of Precedents
Historical/ Typological Precedents
Agora, Athens, Greece
Trajan’s market, Rome
Pike Place market, Seattle
Commodities Excnange, Amsterdam
Merchant's Exchange, Philedelphia
The New York Stock Exchange
The New York Mercantile Exchange
...neoclassical plus addition buildings:
norman foster richestag
coop h new york building
hearst tower nyc
Regional Precedents list:
Ten examples of Successful West Coast Urban Architecture
Technological Precedents
scope of technological precedents
Virtual NYSE
Goldman Sachs handheld trading devides and the NYSE
laser tag
other?
METAPHORICAL PRECEDENTS
About metaphorical precedents
Power pylons
Tectonic Plates
PROGRAM
Methodology
Executive Summary
Values and Goals
Design Considerations (Facts)
Project Requirements (Needs)
Space Program
Major Connections
Ideas
THE PROJECT
Design Method
On Approaches, Theories, Philosophies
(Title): my approach/theory/philosophy
Design Development: what actually happened, process
Design Solution: what I came up with
CONCLUSION
APPENDIX: Data/resources/index/bibliography
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to: Prof. Hajo Neis, Prof. Don Corner, Prof. Alison Snyder, Prof. Howard Davis and Instructor Jean von Bargen for academic support.
Thanks to Sam Rasure, Don Rasure, Nick White and Brent Gaulke for insight into the economics of the project and for helping me find answers to my most difficult research questions.
Thanks to Linda Rapaki of the New York Mercantile exchange and Leigh Ann Gonzalez of the New York Stock Exchange for their gracious tours.
Thanks to the building manager at the exchange tower for allowing me to enter and take photos of the exchange building.
Thanks as well to all who offered their opinions, critiques, queries, advice and support.
Introduction
What kind of marketplace is necessary in this contemporary world? What kind of market place is needed on the west coast? In addressing these questions I began to think about what types of marketplaces still exist as centers of trade. Most trade in the western world is not conducted in auction markets; we typically pay set prices for goods and services, and although these prices are susceptible to price setting factors of supply and demand, we are not usually at liberty to negotiate prices with retailers. Auction trading is harder to come by today, but when it comes to price discovery this method can’t be beat. (auction markets in history)
Even though a great volume of stock and commodity trading today occurs online and at great distances, there are still trading floors at the Chicago Board of Trade, The New York Mercantile Exchange, internally at many large companies, and a NYSE Wall Street trading floor that is the hub of capitalism in the United States. Why is this? If we can buy and sell things online anywhere in the world today, what role does market, as a Place, play for those who are trading ?
As I began to research these questions I learned about the unique situation of the electrical energy trade in the United States. Although means of energy production are spread throughout the American landscape, almost all of the nation’s energy is processed through Henry Hub in Louisiana and bought and sold in these markets in New York and Chicago. The west coast requires about as much energy as the east coast does (these are the two primary regions of energy use in the U.S.), yet all of its energy is traded east of the Mississippi. In addition, the west coast is a particularly “energy sensitive” region.
Since the Deregulation of the Energy industry in the 1980s (define this event) commodities trading in the United States has changed significantly. Once these markets primarily guaranteed trades for butter, eggs, and the like, and now energy resources, energy futures, and even electricity have become the dominant goods of these markets. Why?
Localizing the western energy trade would have a positive effect for the region. Trading electricity and energy resources in a regional center would faciliate communication among energy providers, allowing them to conduct business more efficiently and in turn achieve lower prices for consumers. Centralized trading also would increase the security of resource availability, a direct result of a more liquid market. Local trading would facilitate the implementation of sustainable means of production that are in high demand by consumers in the region. In addition, trading closer to home could allow the west coast greater economic autonomy, generating widespread and desirable consequences for the area.
Infrequently in recent years has the trading floor type been revisited by designers. Many of the same trading floors that existed before computers and even telephones were in common use have been retrofitted to accommodate for the changing needs of a high-tech, fast-paced market. However, what are the space needs of such a marketplace today? How does high-tech floor trading occur, and how can its location be designed to assist its functions?
With the continued advent of better, faster, more adjile and more efficient technologies it seems clear that the exchange as a building type will either transform or disappear altogether. Technology is indeed threatening to invent ways to render the trading floor obsolete, considering the NASDAQ operates electronically and altogether without a trading floor. During the last ten years, and especially into the next ten, historic centers of open outcry trading are being replaced by electronic means of brokerage with little hesitation.
Is this the wave of the future? Is this just one of many ways that technology will come to replace human interaction in the next century? For architects this issue is of significance, a case of changing human behaviors resulting in changes in the built environment. The implications are larger than the loss of one building type if electronic interactions continue to establish dominance over old-fashioned means of communication. The result could rival changes to the built environment that accompanied the widespread use of such inventions as the automobile or electric lighting.
In speaking to some of the traders on the floor of the NYSE I learned that there is a tremendous amount of pride among the community of traders and others who work on the floor. They, as well as others in the industry, ascertain that there are significant advantages to trading in this environment, including speed of trade and market stability. When a great deal of trade is commenced in one room the opportunity is increased for contact with a buyer or seller who might not appear to one another under other, more removed, circumstances.
According to Rob Pratt, leader of the Pacific National Laboratory’s GridWise program, one of the other factors to market price stability is consumer participation . This marketplace building has the potential to invite interest in market participation, allow consumers to observe the activity of trading, and educate them about where their electrical energy comes from.
Safety- trades are guaranteed by the exchange. (for commodities only)
Cast of Characters
The Client
Exchanges are regulatory institutions and neutral suppliers of a fair marketplace. The prospective client for this project is a consortium of public and private western utilities and utility commissions desiring the establishment of an exchange institution. The utilities consortium and its selected trustees supply financing and establish the Energy Exchange Commission (EEC). Once the EEC is established, it is the independent governing body of the Western Energy Exchange, and makes its home in the Western Energy Exchange building.
The Board of Directors
The EEC is ruled by a board or directors. The board is responsible for making and interpreting the rules of trade for the institution.
The Investors
The investors initiate action on the floor by contacting the broker, typically from afar. The investors are the financing and impetus for the exchanges made on the trading floor, and all trading activity is on their behalf.
The Brokers
The brokers are responsible for making trades as requested by the investors. Often for smaller trades, the broker can manage the purchase or sale with the company’s stock of a given commodity. It is only when a trade is too large to be managed in-house that the broker calls upon the trader to find another party to supply or purchase the requested commodity.
The brokers are employed by brokerages: larger companies devolved in investing.
The Traders
The traders are charged with making transactions on the trading floor. When called upon by the broker, the trader finds buyers or sellers among the community of traders. The current demand for a commodity determines which party is able to use the auction market to establish the best price.
Traders can work independently as their own investors if they have the capital, but are typically employed by brokerages.
The Market Makers
The market makers are the matchmakers of the trading floor. For commission, they seek out buyers and sellers to connect with each other, and are especially useful when very large amounts are sought or being sold.
The Clerks
The clerks are in charge of running information and documentation form one place to the next, and assist the brokers and traders in communication with one another.
The Regulators
The regulators are employees of the exchange commission, and are in charge of enforcing the rules of trade.
The Onlookers
The onlookers are people in the trading floor space who are not directly involved in trading or regulation, whose primary reason for being in the space is observatory.
The Press
The press has the opportunity and the responsibility to present the activity on the trading floor to the public at large. Market conditions affect the economy and the politics of the nation, so is important that the press act responsibly in reporting from the floor.
The Public
Everyone is welcome to come into the trading floor space to observe the goings on. The more involved the public is in the trading of energy commodities, the more likely we are as a nation to purchase and use our energy resources responsibly.
Security
The security officials must ensure the safety of the trade building. They must make sure that no firearms or explosives are allowed into the building, and that no other improper means of coercion are used in this facility.
Setting: City and Site Issues
About The Region
According to Joel Garreau in his 1981 book The Nine Nations of North America, Ecotopia is the region of North America stretching from Alaska to northern California along the pacific coast, one of nine nations on the continent bound by its unique worldview. The values that are important to people in this region include individualism and the environment, it is distinguished by an economy of high tech industry, and its “capital” is San Francisco .
Natural resources are abundant along most of the west coast. The pacific northwest is the largest supplier of timber to the continent. Many opportunities exist for hydroelectric, wind, and solar power generation.
Resources in the west. What are they? In what quantities? In what proportions to population, and how does this relate to the same proportion in other parts of the world? Some statistics…
How do we use our resources? How do we regard our resources? Compare Vancouver to Hong Kong?
Did the idea of sustainability come from here? If not, how has the west coast affected the idea?
What will the region look like in the next 25 years? …Hundred years?
What other values are important? Namely, what other values will affect the design?
The global energy industry is highly dependent on regional characteristics in terms of both economy and resources. In the 21st century, areas of the world rich in energy resources have the potential for significant economic gain to be acquired from extraction for an environmental cost, and areas of the world with strong economies have the capacity to import “energy” where they are lacking in resources.
For instance,
The business climate in the west coast region is uniquely, and ever increasingly, both high-tech and eco-friendly. As part of this community both as an institution of business and of culture, the Western Energy Exchange has the opportunity to highlight these regional values economically and architectonically.
It would behoove a region such as the west coast of North America, with both economic means and resources to support its own energy needs, to exploit this combination for its own economic and environmental benefit, keeping its energy dollars and resources in the regional economy. The establishment of a regional energy exchange would promote this end.
City Selection
The City of San Francisco is a place where ideas are born and ideas are brought to fruition. It is a place where people go to take risks, find success, and observe the cues that guide cultural trends in the rest of the country.
History
Founded in 1776 as a Spanish mission and presidio, the city of San Francisco is today the heart of the fourth largest metropolitan region in the United States.
Significant to the development of the city as a major urban center was the discovery of gold in California in 1848. The city took on a cosmopolitan air when its population increased by more than 2500% in a matter of two years, bringing adventurers and settlers from all over the world. Within the next twenty years, San Francisco became increasingly linked to the rest of the world: to the east overseas, and to the west by the pony express and the transcontinental railroad.
In 1906 a great earthquake and three days of fires that followed it destroyed much of the city, and since then earthquakes have continued to plague the city.
Two major bride projects in the 1930s, the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, allowed the San Francisco metropolitan area to continue to expand. However, continued development in San Francisco did not continue unchecked. In the 1950’s the famous freeway revolt demonstrated the adamant forward-thinking spirit of the city that would only be further developed throughout the rest of the 20th century, especially during the cultural revolution of the 1960’s, in which San Francisco played a key role. In the 20th century the city also became a hot spot for Gay and Lesbian culture, and the city continues to have reputation for having residents with more liberal views than the rest of the country.
Character
San Francisco has its own distinctive trademark characteristics, including dense fogs, cable cars, market street and the embarcadero, Chinatown, Height-Asbury, and its numerous other unique neighborhoods.
Geography
San Francisco is located within close enough proximity to major faults to frequently be shaken by earthquakes. The Climate in San Francisco is mild for most of the year, typically hazy and often foggy, especially during summer months.
Business
Prominent businesses based in San Francisco include Levi Strauss & Company, Wells Fargo and Ghirardelli Chocolate, Charles Schwab, SEGA, Macromedia and Dolby. Many major insurance companies are haeadquarted in San Francisco. Printing and publishing, food processing, and oil refining are important industries to the city, and manufactured products important to its economy include textiles and apparel, computers, chemicals, communications equipment, and machinery. San Francisco is also home to the U.S. Federal Reserve and the U.S. Mint.
The city of san Francisco is generally considered the financial capital of the west. Since it is necessary for the Western Energy Trading Center to be closely tied to the major financial institutions of the west, the San Francisco financial district is the ideal location for the institution.
Prices for trades are most efficiently negotiated based upon standards of delivery that not only describe the quality of the product but also the means by which is it to be handed over. San Francisco is the nexus of major western trade routes in the west by both land and sea, allowing transactions to be regulated by delivery prices associated with the city as a port of call.
Eight Important buildings in San Francisco:
Garfield School, by Joseph Esherick, 1981.
The Cannery, by Joseph Esherick, 1968.
Golden Gate Bridge, by Joseph B. Strauss, 1933 to 1937.
Hallidie Building, by Willis Polk, 1918.
Livermore House, by Julia Morgan, 1917.
SFMOMA, by Mario Botta, 1995.
The Hermitage, by EHDD, 1984.
Transamerica Pyramid, by William L. Pereira & Associates, 1969 to 1972.
De Young Museum, by Herzog and De Meuron, 2005.
Asian Art Museum, Gae Aulenti, 2003.
Site Selection
The building site is at the corner of Pine and Sansome in the San Francisco financial district north of Market Street. On this site the West Coast Stock Exchange and Exchange Tower were erected in the late 1920s (the complex was almost complete when the market crashed in 1929). Also on the site is some other building…
The exchange… (about)
The exchange tower… (about)
The exchange complex is not protected on any historical registery: national, state, or citywide. However, there is on the city’s record a historical district designation assigned to the area surrounding the intersection of Pine and Sansome Streets. This designation means…
In order to recognize the history and memory of this building site, the majority of the existing building complex will be retained. …
In addition, the site is in close proximity to major financial institutions to which it will be associated, including banks, insurance companies, and trade companies.
Attitudes about historic preservation (to be written…)
Precedents
Scope of Precedents
Available to the designer are many precedents for this building. Five categories of precedents have been selected: Historical/Typological, Local, Regional Design, Technological, and Metaphorical (or “non-design”). Historical/Typological precedents demonstrate how similar buildings in history have met similar programmatic needs. Local Precedents help broadly describe the local architectural environment. Technological precedents represent innovative integrations of advanced technology into the built environment and serve as examples for the integration of technology in the space to be designed. Local precedents help describe the architectural environment of the city of San Francisco. Design precedents focus on regional examples of good design for urban environments, leading the design by architectural example. Metaphorical precedents, some of which are in fact “non-design” precedents, inform the character of the design by representing architectural ideas that are not yet in architectural form.
Historical/Typological Precedents
Agora, Athens, Greece
2nd century BCE
The Agora, an open air outdoor forum used primarily as a marketplace, additionally served as a cultural and philosophical center for the rapidly advancing city/culture of ancient Athens. It was a place for exchange and exchanging ideas, and an incubator for many ideas that continue to shape western culture today. Most famously, the ancient philosopher Socrates was condemned to death by the city of Athens for “corrupting the youth” by engaging them in dialectical discourse in the Agora.
Trajan’s market, Rome
Early 2nd century CE
Trajan’s market is the ancient equivalent of a modern day shopping center. Trade here was made more efficient for ancient Romans by a centralized location and building. Modular, all-purpose vendor units, or taberna, define the space of each merchant, each opening onto the street for conducting business.
The taberna were flexible in unit size, shape and proportion, dependent upon the needs of the vendor. The marketplace is recognized as being an excellent example of two sides of Roman architecture because it is both utilitarian and monumental.
Pike Place market, Seattle, Engineer John Goodwin, 1907
Pike Place Market was established to prevent price gouging for the good of the consumer and the health of the market. It is Maintained as a marketplace yet today because people enjoy the activity, character, of the market, and because it is recognized as an important part of the history of the city of Seattle. The area under the Main Market’s neon sign has, since the 1930’s, been a “speakers corner” for people of all convictions to share their opinions with onlookers.
Commodities Exchange, Amsterdam, Hendrick Petrus Berlage, 1897-1909
Berlage's most important work, the Commodities Exchange in Amsterdam, is often considered to be the start of modern architecture in the Netherlands.
His aim as a designer was to reject the styles of the past. Unlike most other exchange buildings, it is not neoclassical in style. …
Merchant’s Exchange, Philadelphia, William Strickland, 1831
London coffee house/Merchant’s coffee house/city tavern
The Merchant’s Exchange in Philadelphia began as a coffee house where merchants gathered to discuss trades, and from this group originated the society of trustees that were to back the development of a Merchant’s Exchange building.
In the 1800s real-estate dealing, auctions, and business transactions of all kinds took place at the Merchant’s Exchange, where shipping reports and both local and from all over the world were posted. Naturally some space at the building was given over to a coffee shop.
Solicitor John Kane remarked at the dedication "the building which we have founded shall stand among the relics of antiquities, another memorial to posterity of the skill of its architect — and proof of the liberal spirit, and cultivated taste, which, in our days, distinguish the mercantile community."
Wall Street: trade icon (New York Stock Exchange)
George B. Post, 1903
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has been a leader in integrating technology in the trading floor in a way that has allowed the trading floor space to continue to thrive. According to NYSE publications, “The key to NYSE’s leadership position is its dedication to state-of –the-art technology, a vision with over two centuries of innovation” . As not only an icon but also a hub of capitalism, the NYSE must maintain maximum efficiency of operations in order to survive. In addition to integrating technology into their historic Wall Street trading floor, the NYSE has also commissioned the design of a virtual reality 3-D trading floor to oversee daily operations (designed by Asymptote Architecture, New York).
Since 9/11 security at the NYSE has been significantly augmented. Wall Street is now closed to thru vehicular traffic. Security check consists of pre-authorization, check-in at the street, digital photography and identification at the door, and x-ray screening.
The first floor is where the main trading room and the “blue room” trading room are. Booths for the companies and posts where the trades occur are given adjacencies in relation to what is being traded. Tape on the floor about three feet out from each of the posts marks the line of interest, outside of which it is customary to stand when talking to the broker at the booth unless serious about making a trade. On the second floor overlooking the main trading floor space there is a member’s gallery and about four press booths, and there are also a “bell ringing balcony” and a boardroom on the second floor.
There are several jobs on the floor besides that of the broker: a specialist maintains contact with the clerk who is on contact with the agents for firms.
Technology on the floor has significantly changed over time. The min-twentieth century in-house trade phones on the wall are no longer used in favor of cell phones. Some traders now have handheld trading computers, and it is anticipated that with the transformation of the NYSE to a hybrid market, commensurate with the NYSE’s merger with Archipelago Holdings, all floor brokers will soon be trading on these specialized handhelds. The difference between using the handhelds (which can be used either by independent or single brokers) is that the handheld facilitates “looks”, meaning a quote at a certain price can be sent to thirty different parties at once, instead of each of the parties having to be called upon individually. Currently the broker/specialist has no email available at the booth, he must deal through the agent face-to face. In terms of the changes from today’s market to the hybrid market slated to take over in 2006, the way things are done now traders’ analysis of the market is visual, and after the change traders will analyze the market algorithmically instead. Although this will be an effective change, it renders obsolete one very specialized skill set of the traders and requires them to learn another.
The rest of the building houses offices for market operations, listed companies, senior management and the chairman, finance, in house printers, a human resources department, and a department of regulation. There is also a lobby and small waiting space, although these are not large enough to comfortably house these purposes and meet the space needs associated with increased security.
The New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX)
Thomas R. Jackson, 1886
NYMEX operates very differently than the NYSE. Rings, or pits, are the locus of trade, and each product has its own. The pits for natural gas and coal, among the larger commodity pits, can each facilitate 175-200 traders. All of the traders are acting as auctioneers, and because of this the floor is a hive of activity, including yelling, gesturing, and posturing.
There are about 1500 members per floor, and there are two floors: NYMEX has 816 seats and COMEX/NYBOT has 772 seats. There are about 500 people in the support staff for the NYMEX and 300 support staff for COMEX/NYBOT. The COMEX/NYBOT trading floor used to be at the world trade center, but has recently and permanently moved to the mercantile building. In both rooms the information about the day’s market is displayed on electronic screens either lining walls of the room facing in or overhead in the center of the pit facing out.
Booths can either be per firm or independent, but they are like little offices for the traders, lining the room and surrounding the pits. Clerks have stations throughout the floor with computers, their job is to assist the traders in carrying out transactions.
There is a hierarchy to standing placement on the pit, the higher rings go to firms and the lower rings go to independent brokers, although neither are said to be at an advantage or disadvantage because of their placement. Phone clerks remain in the very back and are attached to the phone, receiving orders to place in the pit. Exchange employees are in the pit as well, and collect the cards to put into a chute. Trades are commenced when firms toss tickets into the “card clocker” ‘s station/basket/net, and they are time stamped according to when they were tossed.
The exchange has a long history and has housed the trading of a wide variety of commodities. Energy commodities are primary in the last thirty years, and although NYMEX has remained under the homeland security radar for some time now, raising fuel prices have made the building a recent target for increased security. A center of trade must be prepared for disaster, and the NYMEX building has a five-day generator that supplies the exchange so that trade can continue in case of outage. However, controlling access to the building is currently the most pressing security issue, in respect to the threat of terrorist activity.
The advantages of floor rather than electronic trading are many. Customers prefer the floor trading because the greater speed of order execution, the money guarantee here, and that system crashes are avoidable.
To purchase a seat costs about 3.5 million dollars, although they can be leased for 25 to 30 thousand dollars a month. However, it is more than monetary value to presence on the trading floor; everyone involved in this community (as is the case at the NYSE) displays a tremendous amount of pride in being a part of the institution.
... neoclassical plus addition buildings:
norman foster richestag
coop h new york building
hearst tower nyc
scarpa
Regional Precedents list:
Ten examples of Successful West Coast Urban Architecture
What is it about each of these that makes it important to learn from?
Chapel of the Chimes, Oakland, California, J. Morgan
Chapel of St. Ignatius, Seattle, Washington, S. Holl
Disneyland, Orange County, California, Various
Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California, W. Polk
Lovell House, Los Angeles, California, R. Neutra
Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington, Various
Salk Institute, La Jolla, California, L. Kahn
Taos Pueblos, Taos, New Mexico, Various
Venice Beach House, Venice, California, F. Gehry
Weiden+Kennedy Headquarters, Portland, Oregon, Allied Works
Technological Precedents
Scope of tech prec: should cover both technology in the trading floor space and building technology???
Virtual NYSE: Asymptote Architecture 2005
The design of the Virtual Trading Floor for the New York Stock Exchange involved the design of an interactive architectural environment intended for the space of the computer. The Virtual Trading Floor was the first business application of an interactive virtual architecture.
Displayed on the trading floor on an array of nine large flat screen high resolution displays it allows for day to day monitoring as well as crisis management of all aspects of NYSE trading floor activity. Following the design of the Virtual Trading Floor, the New York Stock Exchange commissioned Asymptote to design a new Advanced Command Center for the actual NYSE floor.
The array of large flat screen monitors mentioned above is a center piece of the design. This and other flat screens seemingly float off a liquid like illuminated curved blue glass wall and hover above a double curved meandering work surface. This along with imbedded ribbons of text in various surfaces captures the essence of the different ‘flows’ that encompass the Stock Exchange trading floor. This project, which in every sense has become a “Theater of Operations”, has launched the NYSE into the 21st century.
Goldman Sachs handheld trading devides and the NYSE
Laser tag
Other?
Metaphorical Precedents
About metaphorical precedents
Power Pylons.
Tectonic Plates.
Based upon the (yet to be decided??) concept or concepts for the building, this will include entities with certain structural frameworks, compositions, characters, etc. that seem appropriate to make the building design analogous to.
Program
Methodology
The following program has been developed according to programming guidelines set forth in the Fall 2005 programming course at the University of Oregon School of Architecture’s Portland Campus. A knowledge-based programming method has been selected because of the complexity of the building type. However, this program document does not reflect the interviews and observations to be made on December 9, 2005 at the New York Stock Exchange because this document was due on that date. Therefore, assumptions about the function of the building have been made (hypotheses) and will be tested in order to create a more refined iteration of this document before the design phase commences.
Values and Goals for this program are the values and goals of the designer…
Executive Summary
The following document represents an initial concept for a trading floor for the western energy industry. The total square footage is about 75,000.
The main issues of this program are to: facilitate liquid trade of energy resources by increasing interaction between traders, ensure the endurance of the trading floor as type by providing a model of human-technological symbiosis, and architecturally connect the past, present and future of human interaction through trade by highlighting the present trading climate with a signature building.
The project is speculative, based upon the assumption that all member organizations of the trade will be willing to, and will benefit from, the centralization of trading in the region.
The proposed site is the old pacific stock exchange location in the
Financial District of San Francisco, on Pine Street just north of Market Street. On the site currently exists the old pacific exchange building, in use today as a workout facility. It is intended that the building remain and be added onto in a manner that preserves its initial quality, yet produces a new building with its own unique and exciting architectural character.
Values and Goals
Human Goal
Create a space that promotes human interaction
Promote understanding of …
Technological/Temporal Goal
Create a building that will meet today and tomorrow’s high tech trading needs
Environmental Goals
LEED?????
Facilitate environmental regionalism, pride and identity in place
Promote liquid trade in select markets tying them closely to one another, therefore increasing stability in the grid as a whole for the region
Cultural Goals
Acknowledge the past and future of trade
Educate the public about trade, the west, and energy production and consumption
Economic Goal
Facilitate energy and economic autonomy for the region
Aesthetic Goal
Create an inspiring, light filled, beautiful space that acknowledges its place in the world and in history
Values and goals narrative
The most important values…
Design Considerations (Facts)
Human/Technological Facts
Humans must interact with technology
Trade is increasingly high tech
Environmental Fact
The west is an area rich with resources and sparsely populated, save the coastal region
Cultural Facts
Westerners often appreciate their natural resources more than residents of other regions
Building site may be considered to some to be historic, although the city does not acknowledge it as such
Temporal Facts
Trading floors are disappearing quickly
Electronic trade will soon replace face-to-face trade
Economic Fact
Energy trade in the west is currently very closely linked to trade in the rest of the country, although it behaves differently
Safety Facts
SF is located in an active Seismic Zone- more info here
Building must have secured entry
Project Requirements (Needs)
Human Needs
Space for movement and interaction with people, space for interaction with technology
Environmental/ Cultural Need
To represent the ecological values
Technological Needs
Electronic means of communication integrated with the space in a way that promotes efficient trading
Aesthetic Needs
To be attractive to the trade community, to be attractive to the community at large
Safety Needs
Adequate structure
Spaces that easily limited in access to individuals with appropriate clearance
Space Program
Square Footages (total: about 75,000 ft2)
A. Trading Space/Floor/Platform/Pit/room-about 12,000ft2 (one quarter the size of the NYSE trading floor space)
B. Trading Technology- between 500 and 5,000 ft2
Routers, computers, machines, generators, mechanisms
C. Work Space for Traders (brokers, suppliers etc)- about 20,000 ft2
Booths and Posts
Communication Platforms/Stations/Spaces
Offices, meeting rooms, conference and auxiliary spaces
D. Public/Education Space- about 10,000 ft2
E. Regulator Offices and Control Room- about 10,000 ft2
F. Other- about 20,000 ft2
Lobby
Security, reception
Outdoor Space
Service spaces: bathrooms, storage, circulation, mechanical/utility, and coffee/snack bar
Miscellaneous
G. Adjacent Open space
Major Connections (and disconnections):
A. The trading floor must be closely connected physically and electronically with the workspace for traders.
B. The regulator and control room must be able to observe and record all visual and financial activity that occurs on the trading floor.
C. The traders must be electronically connected to quotes, their companies, and other traders.
D. The public/education space should be at the street level and visible to the public.
E. The connections for trading floor displays, routers, and other technology in the trading space should be secure, accessible for maintenance, anticipatory of change, and architecturally expressed (visually connected to users).
F. The trading floor should be visible to the public as part of the education center component, but not accessible to the public without security clearance.
G. The outdoor space should be within the security perimeter of the building.
H. Access to the building should be limited to one secured entrance.
Ideas (interactions) – “mini-visions”
A. Human-Technological Symbiosis (old type meets high tech)
B. Resource Regionalism via Energy commerce, the energy trade building promote regional autonomy /Spotlight clean energy (natural capitalism)
a. Aesthetically/formally
Using local building resources in building design
Minimizing energy consumption to set a positive example
b. Culturally/educationally
Public access to information about energy and the region
Act as a beacon, draw attention from the public
c. Economically/safety-stability
Empower regional governments to promote regional trade
C. Connection to history (place, type)
Revisit historical forms of places of trade
Allow for future technological expansion
Connect capitalism to environmentalism through architecture
(Descriptive vision)
Certain ideas are to be manifested architecturally through this project:
Connection of past to present
Something about use of energy, resources (they are for our use but we must use them wisely or something like that)
How trading will be improved by the new configuration of space
The Project
Design Method
On Approaches, Theories, Philosophies
Larger organic theory-
Design development is based on structurally enhancing transformations
Deconstructivist theory-
(Title): my approach/theory/philosophy
writing, blog and idea generation
nonlinear and indirect
Design Development: what actually happened, process
Design Solution: what I came up with
Conclusion
The design for the Western Energy Trading Center in San Francisco will facilitate liquid trade of energy resources by increasing interaction between traders, ensure the endurance of the trading floor as type by providing a model of human-technological symbiosis, and architecturally connect the past, present and future of human interaction through trade by highlighting the present trading climate with a signature building.
The Western Energy
Exchange
San Francisco, California
A thesis project by Mary Rasure
Master’s Degree Candidate, University of Oregon School of Architecture
Table Of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
OCCUPANTS
The Client
The Investors
The Brokers
The Traders
The Market Makers
The Clerks
The Regulators
The Onlookers
Security
SITE
The Region
City Selection
History
Character
Geography
Business
Eight Important buildings in San Francisco
SITE SELECTION
Attitudes about historic preservation (to be written…)
PRESCEDENTS
Scope of Precedents
Historical/ Typological Precedents
Agora, Athens, Greece
Trajan’s market, Rome
Pike Place market, Seattle
Commodities Excnange, Amsterdam
Merchant's Exchange, Philedelphia
The New York Stock Exchange
The New York Mercantile Exchange
...neoclassical plus addition buildings:
norman foster richestag
coop h new york building
hearst tower nyc
Regional Precedents list:
Ten examples of Successful West Coast Urban Architecture
Technological Precedents
scope of technological precedents
Virtual NYSE
Goldman Sachs handheld trading devides and the NYSE
laser tag
other?
METAPHORICAL PRECEDENTS
About metaphorical precedents
Power pylons
Tectonic Plates
PROGRAM
Methodology
Executive Summary
Values and Goals
Design Considerations (Facts)
Project Requirements (Needs)
Space Program
Major Connections
Ideas
THE PROJECT
Design Method
On Approaches, Theories, Philosophies
(Title): my approach/theory/philosophy
Design Development: what actually happened, process
Design Solution: what I came up with
CONCLUSION
APPENDIX: Data/resources/index/bibliography
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to: Prof. Hajo Neis, Prof. Don Corner, Prof. Alison Snyder, Prof. Howard Davis and Instructor Jean von Bargen for academic support.
Thanks to Sam Rasure, Don Rasure, Nick White and Brent Gaulke for insight into the economics of the project and for helping me find answers to my most difficult research questions.
Thanks to Linda Rapaki of the New York Mercantile exchange and Leigh Ann Gonzalez of the New York Stock Exchange for their gracious tours.
Thanks to the building manager at the exchange tower for allowing me to enter and take photos of the exchange building.
Thanks as well to all who offered their opinions, critiques, queries, advice and support.
Introduction
What kind of marketplace is necessary in this contemporary world? What kind of market place is needed on the west coast? In addressing these questions I began to think about what types of marketplaces still exist as centers of trade. Most trade in the western world is not conducted in auction markets; we typically pay set prices for goods and services, and although these prices are susceptible to price setting factors of supply and demand, we are not usually at liberty to negotiate prices with retailers. Auction trading is harder to come by today, but when it comes to price discovery this method can’t be beat. (auction markets in history)
Even though a great volume of stock and commodity trading today occurs online and at great distances, there are still trading floors at the Chicago Board of Trade, The New York Mercantile Exchange, internally at many large companies, and a NYSE Wall Street trading floor that is the hub of capitalism in the United States. Why is this? If we can buy and sell things online anywhere in the world today, what role does market, as a Place, play for those who are trading ?
As I began to research these questions I learned about the unique situation of the electrical energy trade in the United States. Although means of energy production are spread throughout the American landscape, almost all of the nation’s energy is processed through Henry Hub in Louisiana and bought and sold in these markets in New York and Chicago. The west coast requires about as much energy as the east coast does (these are the two primary regions of energy use in the U.S.), yet all of its energy is traded east of the Mississippi. In addition, the west coast is a particularly “energy sensitive” region.
Since the Deregulation of the Energy industry in the 1980s (define this event) commodities trading in the United States has changed significantly. Once these markets primarily guaranteed trades for butter, eggs, and the like, and now energy resources, energy futures, and even electricity have become the dominant goods of these markets. Why?
Localizing the western energy trade would have a positive effect for the region. Trading electricity and energy resources in a regional center would faciliate communication among energy providers, allowing them to conduct business more efficiently and in turn achieve lower prices for consumers. Centralized trading also would increase the security of resource availability, a direct result of a more liquid market. Local trading would facilitate the implementation of sustainable means of production that are in high demand by consumers in the region. In addition, trading closer to home could allow the west coast greater economic autonomy, generating widespread and desirable consequences for the area.
Infrequently in recent years has the trading floor type been revisited by designers. Many of the same trading floors that existed before computers and even telephones were in common use have been retrofitted to accommodate for the changing needs of a high-tech, fast-paced market. However, what are the space needs of such a marketplace today? How does high-tech floor trading occur, and how can its location be designed to assist its functions?
With the continued advent of better, faster, more adjile and more efficient technologies it seems clear that the exchange as a building type will either transform or disappear altogether. Technology is indeed threatening to invent ways to render the trading floor obsolete, considering the NASDAQ operates electronically and altogether without a trading floor. During the last ten years, and especially into the next ten, historic centers of open outcry trading are being replaced by electronic means of brokerage with little hesitation.
Is this the wave of the future? Is this just one of many ways that technology will come to replace human interaction in the next century? For architects this issue is of significance, a case of changing human behaviors resulting in changes in the built environment. The implications are larger than the loss of one building type if electronic interactions continue to establish dominance over old-fashioned means of communication. The result could rival changes to the built environment that accompanied the widespread use of such inventions as the automobile or electric lighting.
In speaking to some of the traders on the floor of the NYSE I learned that there is a tremendous amount of pride among the community of traders and others who work on the floor. They, as well as others in the industry, ascertain that there are significant advantages to trading in this environment, including speed of trade and market stability. When a great deal of trade is commenced in one room the opportunity is increased for contact with a buyer or seller who might not appear to one another under other, more removed, circumstances.
According to Rob Pratt, leader of the Pacific National Laboratory’s GridWise program, one of the other factors to market price stability is consumer participation . This marketplace building has the potential to invite interest in market participation, allow consumers to observe the activity of trading, and educate them about where their electrical energy comes from.
Safety- trades are guaranteed by the exchange. (for commodities only)
Cast of Characters
The Client
Exchanges are regulatory institutions and neutral suppliers of a fair marketplace. The prospective client for this project is a consortium of public and private western utilities and utility commissions desiring the establishment of an exchange institution. The utilities consortium and its selected trustees supply financing and establish the Energy Exchange Commission (EEC). Once the EEC is established, it is the independent governing body of the Western Energy Exchange, and makes its home in the Western Energy Exchange building.
The Board of Directors
The EEC is ruled by a board or directors. The board is responsible for making and interpreting the rules of trade for the institution.
The Investors
The investors initiate action on the floor by contacting the broker, typically from afar. The investors are the financing and impetus for the exchanges made on the trading floor, and all trading activity is on their behalf.
The Brokers
The brokers are responsible for making trades as requested by the investors. Often for smaller trades, the broker can manage the purchase or sale with the company’s stock of a given commodity. It is only when a trade is too large to be managed in-house that the broker calls upon the trader to find another party to supply or purchase the requested commodity.
The brokers are employed by brokerages: larger companies devolved in investing.
The Traders
The traders are charged with making transactions on the trading floor. When called upon by the broker, the trader finds buyers or sellers among the community of traders. The current demand for a commodity determines which party is able to use the auction market to establish the best price.
Traders can work independently as their own investors if they have the capital, but are typically employed by brokerages.
The Market Makers
The market makers are the matchmakers of the trading floor. For commission, they seek out buyers and sellers to connect with each other, and are especially useful when very large amounts are sought or being sold.
The Clerks
The clerks are in charge of running information and documentation form one place to the next, and assist the brokers and traders in communication with one another.
The Regulators
The regulators are employees of the exchange commission, and are in charge of enforcing the rules of trade.
The Onlookers
The onlookers are people in the trading floor space who are not directly involved in trading or regulation, whose primary reason for being in the space is observatory.
The Press
The press has the opportunity and the responsibility to present the activity on the trading floor to the public at large. Market conditions affect the economy and the politics of the nation, so is important that the press act responsibly in reporting from the floor.
The Public
Everyone is welcome to come into the trading floor space to observe the goings on. The more involved the public is in the trading of energy commodities, the more likely we are as a nation to purchase and use our energy resources responsibly.
Security
The security officials must ensure the safety of the trade building. They must make sure that no firearms or explosives are allowed into the building, and that no other improper means of coercion are used in this facility.
Setting: City and Site Issues
About The Region
According to Joel Garreau in his 1981 book The Nine Nations of North America, Ecotopia is the region of North America stretching from Alaska to northern California along the pacific coast, one of nine nations on the continent bound by its unique worldview. The values that are important to people in this region include individualism and the environment, it is distinguished by an economy of high tech industry, and its “capital” is San Francisco .
Natural resources are abundant along most of the west coast. The pacific northwest is the largest supplier of timber to the continent. Many opportunities exist for hydroelectric, wind, and solar power generation.
Resources in the west. What are they? In what quantities? In what proportions to population, and how does this relate to the same proportion in other parts of the world? Some statistics…
How do we use our resources? How do we regard our resources? Compare Vancouver to Hong Kong?
Did the idea of sustainability come from here? If not, how has the west coast affected the idea?
What will the region look like in the next 25 years? …Hundred years?
What other values are important? Namely, what other values will affect the design?
The global energy industry is highly dependent on regional characteristics in terms of both economy and resources. In the 21st century, areas of the world rich in energy resources have the potential for significant economic gain to be acquired from extraction for an environmental cost, and areas of the world with strong economies have the capacity to import “energy” where they are lacking in resources.
For instance,
The business climate in the west coast region is uniquely, and ever increasingly, both high-tech and eco-friendly. As part of this community both as an institution of business and of culture, the Western Energy Exchange has the opportunity to highlight these regional values economically and architectonically.
It would behoove a region such as the west coast of North America, with both economic means and resources to support its own energy needs, to exploit this combination for its own economic and environmental benefit, keeping its energy dollars and resources in the regional economy. The establishment of a regional energy exchange would promote this end.
City Selection
The City of San Francisco is a place where ideas are born and ideas are brought to fruition. It is a place where people go to take risks, find success, and observe the cues that guide cultural trends in the rest of the country.
History
Founded in 1776 as a Spanish mission and presidio, the city of San Francisco is today the heart of the fourth largest metropolitan region in the United States.
Significant to the development of the city as a major urban center was the discovery of gold in California in 1848. The city took on a cosmopolitan air when its population increased by more than 2500% in a matter of two years, bringing adventurers and settlers from all over the world. Within the next twenty years, San Francisco became increasingly linked to the rest of the world: to the east overseas, and to the west by the pony express and the transcontinental railroad.
In 1906 a great earthquake and three days of fires that followed it destroyed much of the city, and since then earthquakes have continued to plague the city.
Two major bride projects in the 1930s, the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, allowed the San Francisco metropolitan area to continue to expand. However, continued development in San Francisco did not continue unchecked. In the 1950’s the famous freeway revolt demonstrated the adamant forward-thinking spirit of the city that would only be further developed throughout the rest of the 20th century, especially during the cultural revolution of the 1960’s, in which San Francisco played a key role. In the 20th century the city also became a hot spot for Gay and Lesbian culture, and the city continues to have reputation for having residents with more liberal views than the rest of the country.
Character
San Francisco has its own distinctive trademark characteristics, including dense fogs, cable cars, market street and the embarcadero, Chinatown, Height-Asbury, and its numerous other unique neighborhoods.
Geography
San Francisco is located within close enough proximity to major faults to frequently be shaken by earthquakes. The Climate in San Francisco is mild for most of the year, typically hazy and often foggy, especially during summer months.
Business
Prominent businesses based in San Francisco include Levi Strauss & Company, Wells Fargo and Ghirardelli Chocolate, Charles Schwab, SEGA, Macromedia and Dolby. Many major insurance companies are haeadquarted in San Francisco. Printing and publishing, food processing, and oil refining are important industries to the city, and manufactured products important to its economy include textiles and apparel, computers, chemicals, communications equipment, and machinery. San Francisco is also home to the U.S. Federal Reserve and the U.S. Mint.
The city of san Francisco is generally considered the financial capital of the west. Since it is necessary for the Western Energy Trading Center to be closely tied to the major financial institutions of the west, the San Francisco financial district is the ideal location for the institution.
Prices for trades are most efficiently negotiated based upon standards of delivery that not only describe the quality of the product but also the means by which is it to be handed over. San Francisco is the nexus of major western trade routes in the west by both land and sea, allowing transactions to be regulated by delivery prices associated with the city as a port of call.
Eight Important buildings in San Francisco:
Garfield School, by Joseph Esherick, 1981.
The Cannery, by Joseph Esherick, 1968.
Golden Gate Bridge, by Joseph B. Strauss, 1933 to 1937.
Hallidie Building, by Willis Polk, 1918.
Livermore House, by Julia Morgan, 1917.
SFMOMA, by Mario Botta, 1995.
The Hermitage, by EHDD, 1984.
Transamerica Pyramid, by William L. Pereira & Associates, 1969 to 1972.
De Young Museum, by Herzog and De Meuron, 2005.
Asian Art Museum, Gae Aulenti, 2003.
Site Selection
The building site is at the corner of Pine and Sansome in the San Francisco financial district north of Market Street. On this site the West Coast Stock Exchange and Exchange Tower were erected in the late 1920s (the complex was almost complete when the market crashed in 1929). Also on the site is some other building…
The exchange… (about)
The exchange tower… (about)
The exchange complex is not protected on any historical registery: national, state, or citywide. However, there is on the city’s record a historical district designation assigned to the area surrounding the intersection of Pine and Sansome Streets. This designation means…
In order to recognize the history and memory of this building site, the majority of the existing building complex will be retained. …
In addition, the site is in close proximity to major financial institutions to which it will be associated, including banks, insurance companies, and trade companies.
Attitudes about historic preservation (to be written…)
Precedents
Scope of Precedents
Available to the designer are many precedents for this building. Five categories of precedents have been selected: Historical/Typological, Local, Regional Design, Technological, and Metaphorical (or “non-design”). Historical/Typological precedents demonstrate how similar buildings in history have met similar programmatic needs. Local Precedents help broadly describe the local architectural environment. Technological precedents represent innovative integrations of advanced technology into the built environment and serve as examples for the integration of technology in the space to be designed. Local precedents help describe the architectural environment of the city of San Francisco. Design precedents focus on regional examples of good design for urban environments, leading the design by architectural example. Metaphorical precedents, some of which are in fact “non-design” precedents, inform the character of the design by representing architectural ideas that are not yet in architectural form.
Historical/Typological Precedents
Agora, Athens, Greece
2nd century BCE
The Agora, an open air outdoor forum used primarily as a marketplace, additionally served as a cultural and philosophical center for the rapidly advancing city/culture of ancient Athens. It was a place for exchange and exchanging ideas, and an incubator for many ideas that continue to shape western culture today. Most famously, the ancient philosopher Socrates was condemned to death by the city of Athens for “corrupting the youth” by engaging them in dialectical discourse in the Agora.
Trajan’s market, Rome
Early 2nd century CE
Trajan’s market is the ancient equivalent of a modern day shopping center. Trade here was made more efficient for ancient Romans by a centralized location and building. Modular, all-purpose vendor units, or taberna, define the space of each merchant, each opening onto the street for conducting business.
The taberna were flexible in unit size, shape and proportion, dependent upon the needs of the vendor. The marketplace is recognized as being an excellent example of two sides of Roman architecture because it is both utilitarian and monumental.
Pike Place market, Seattle, Engineer John Goodwin, 1907
Pike Place Market was established to prevent price gouging for the good of the consumer and the health of the market. It is Maintained as a marketplace yet today because people enjoy the activity, character, of the market, and because it is recognized as an important part of the history of the city of Seattle. The area under the Main Market’s neon sign has, since the 1930’s, been a “speakers corner” for people of all convictions to share their opinions with onlookers.
Commodities Exchange, Amsterdam, Hendrick Petrus Berlage, 1897-1909
Berlage's most important work, the Commodities Exchange in Amsterdam, is often considered to be the start of modern architecture in the Netherlands.
His aim as a designer was to reject the styles of the past. Unlike most other exchange buildings, it is not neoclassical in style. …
Merchant’s Exchange, Philadelphia, William Strickland, 1831
London coffee house/Merchant’s coffee house/city tavern
The Merchant’s Exchange in Philadelphia began as a coffee house where merchants gathered to discuss trades, and from this group originated the society of trustees that were to back the development of a Merchant’s Exchange building.
In the 1800s real-estate dealing, auctions, and business transactions of all kinds took place at the Merchant’s Exchange, where shipping reports and both local and from all over the world were posted. Naturally some space at the building was given over to a coffee shop.
Solicitor John Kane remarked at the dedication "the building which we have founded shall stand among the relics of antiquities, another memorial to posterity of the skill of its architect — and proof of the liberal spirit, and cultivated taste, which, in our days, distinguish the mercantile community."
Wall Street: trade icon (New York Stock Exchange)
George B. Post, 1903
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has been a leader in integrating technology in the trading floor in a way that has allowed the trading floor space to continue to thrive. According to NYSE publications, “The key to NYSE’s leadership position is its dedication to state-of –the-art technology, a vision with over two centuries of innovation” . As not only an icon but also a hub of capitalism, the NYSE must maintain maximum efficiency of operations in order to survive. In addition to integrating technology into their historic Wall Street trading floor, the NYSE has also commissioned the design of a virtual reality 3-D trading floor to oversee daily operations (designed by Asymptote Architecture, New York).
Since 9/11 security at the NYSE has been significantly augmented. Wall Street is now closed to thru vehicular traffic. Security check consists of pre-authorization, check-in at the street, digital photography and identification at the door, and x-ray screening.
The first floor is where the main trading room and the “blue room” trading room are. Booths for the companies and posts where the trades occur are given adjacencies in relation to what is being traded. Tape on the floor about three feet out from each of the posts marks the line of interest, outside of which it is customary to stand when talking to the broker at the booth unless serious about making a trade. On the second floor overlooking the main trading floor space there is a member’s gallery and about four press booths, and there are also a “bell ringing balcony” and a boardroom on the second floor.
There are several jobs on the floor besides that of the broker: a specialist maintains contact with the clerk who is on contact with the agents for firms.
Technology on the floor has significantly changed over time. The min-twentieth century in-house trade phones on the wall are no longer used in favor of cell phones. Some traders now have handheld trading computers, and it is anticipated that with the transformation of the NYSE to a hybrid market, commensurate with the NYSE’s merger with Archipelago Holdings, all floor brokers will soon be trading on these specialized handhelds. The difference between using the handhelds (which can be used either by independent or single brokers) is that the handheld facilitates “looks”, meaning a quote at a certain price can be sent to thirty different parties at once, instead of each of the parties having to be called upon individually. Currently the broker/specialist has no email available at the booth, he must deal through the agent face-to face. In terms of the changes from today’s market to the hybrid market slated to take over in 2006, the way things are done now traders’ analysis of the market is visual, and after the change traders will analyze the market algorithmically instead. Although this will be an effective change, it renders obsolete one very specialized skill set of the traders and requires them to learn another.
The rest of the building houses offices for market operations, listed companies, senior management and the chairman, finance, in house printers, a human resources department, and a department of regulation. There is also a lobby and small waiting space, although these are not large enough to comfortably house these purposes and meet the space needs associated with increased security.
The New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX)
Thomas R. Jackson, 1886
NYMEX operates very differently than the NYSE. Rings, or pits, are the locus of trade, and each product has its own. The pits for natural gas and coal, among the larger commodity pits, can each facilitate 175-200 traders. All of the traders are acting as auctioneers, and because of this the floor is a hive of activity, including yelling, gesturing, and posturing.
There are about 1500 members per floor, and there are two floors: NYMEX has 816 seats and COMEX/NYBOT has 772 seats. There are about 500 people in the support staff for the NYMEX and 300 support staff for COMEX/NYBOT. The COMEX/NYBOT trading floor used to be at the world trade center, but has recently and permanently moved to the mercantile building. In both rooms the information about the day’s market is displayed on electronic screens either lining walls of the room facing in or overhead in the center of the pit facing out.
Booths can either be per firm or independent, but they are like little offices for the traders, lining the room and surrounding the pits. Clerks have stations throughout the floor with computers, their job is to assist the traders in carrying out transactions.
There is a hierarchy to standing placement on the pit, the higher rings go to firms and the lower rings go to independent brokers, although neither are said to be at an advantage or disadvantage because of their placement. Phone clerks remain in the very back and are attached to the phone, receiving orders to place in the pit. Exchange employees are in the pit as well, and collect the cards to put into a chute. Trades are commenced when firms toss tickets into the “card clocker” ‘s station/basket/net, and they are time stamped according to when they were tossed.
The exchange has a long history and has housed the trading of a wide variety of commodities. Energy commodities are primary in the last thirty years, and although NYMEX has remained under the homeland security radar for some time now, raising fuel prices have made the building a recent target for increased security. A center of trade must be prepared for disaster, and the NYMEX building has a five-day generator that supplies the exchange so that trade can continue in case of outage. However, controlling access to the building is currently the most pressing security issue, in respect to the threat of terrorist activity.
The advantages of floor rather than electronic trading are many. Customers prefer the floor trading because the greater speed of order execution, the money guarantee here, and that system crashes are avoidable.
To purchase a seat costs about 3.5 million dollars, although they can be leased for 25 to 30 thousand dollars a month. However, it is more than monetary value to presence on the trading floor; everyone involved in this community (as is the case at the NYSE) displays a tremendous amount of pride in being a part of the institution.
... neoclassical plus addition buildings:
norman foster richestag
coop h new york building
hearst tower nyc
scarpa
Regional Precedents list:
Ten examples of Successful West Coast Urban Architecture
What is it about each of these that makes it important to learn from?
Chapel of the Chimes, Oakland, California, J. Morgan
Chapel of St. Ignatius, Seattle, Washington, S. Holl
Disneyland, Orange County, California, Various
Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California, W. Polk
Lovell House, Los Angeles, California, R. Neutra
Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington, Various
Salk Institute, La Jolla, California, L. Kahn
Taos Pueblos, Taos, New Mexico, Various
Venice Beach House, Venice, California, F. Gehry
Weiden+Kennedy Headquarters, Portland, Oregon, Allied Works
Technological Precedents
Scope of tech prec: should cover both technology in the trading floor space and building technology???
Virtual NYSE: Asymptote Architecture 2005
The design of the Virtual Trading Floor for the New York Stock Exchange involved the design of an interactive architectural environment intended for the space of the computer. The Virtual Trading Floor was the first business application of an interactive virtual architecture.
Displayed on the trading floor on an array of nine large flat screen high resolution displays it allows for day to day monitoring as well as crisis management of all aspects of NYSE trading floor activity. Following the design of the Virtual Trading Floor, the New York Stock Exchange commissioned Asymptote to design a new Advanced Command Center for the actual NYSE floor.
The array of large flat screen monitors mentioned above is a center piece of the design. This and other flat screens seemingly float off a liquid like illuminated curved blue glass wall and hover above a double curved meandering work surface. This along with imbedded ribbons of text in various surfaces captures the essence of the different ‘flows’ that encompass the Stock Exchange trading floor. This project, which in every sense has become a “Theater of Operations”, has launched the NYSE into the 21st century.
Goldman Sachs handheld trading devides and the NYSE
Laser tag
Other?
Metaphorical Precedents
About metaphorical precedents
Power Pylons.
Tectonic Plates.
Based upon the (yet to be decided??) concept or concepts for the building, this will include entities with certain structural frameworks, compositions, characters, etc. that seem appropriate to make the building design analogous to.
Program
Methodology
The following program has been developed according to programming guidelines set forth in the Fall 2005 programming course at the University of Oregon School of Architecture’s Portland Campus. A knowledge-based programming method has been selected because of the complexity of the building type. However, this program document does not reflect the interviews and observations to be made on December 9, 2005 at the New York Stock Exchange because this document was due on that date. Therefore, assumptions about the function of the building have been made (hypotheses) and will be tested in order to create a more refined iteration of this document before the design phase commences.
Values and Goals for this program are the values and goals of the designer…
Executive Summary
The following document represents an initial concept for a trading floor for the western energy industry. The total square footage is about 75,000.
The main issues of this program are to: facilitate liquid trade of energy resources by increasing interaction between traders, ensure the endurance of the trading floor as type by providing a model of human-technological symbiosis, and architecturally connect the past, present and future of human interaction through trade by highlighting the present trading climate with a signature building.
The project is speculative, based upon the assumption that all member organizations of the trade will be willing to, and will benefit from, the centralization of trading in the region.
The proposed site is the old pacific stock exchange location in the
Financial District of San Francisco, on Pine Street just north of Market Street. On the site currently exists the old pacific exchange building, in use today as a workout facility. It is intended that the building remain and be added onto in a manner that preserves its initial quality, yet produces a new building with its own unique and exciting architectural character.
Values and Goals
Human Goal
Create a space that promotes human interaction
Promote understanding of …
Technological/Temporal Goal
Create a building that will meet today and tomorrow’s high tech trading needs
Environmental Goals
LEED?????
Facilitate environmental regionalism, pride and identity in place
Promote liquid trade in select markets tying them closely to one another, therefore increasing stability in the grid as a whole for the region
Cultural Goals
Acknowledge the past and future of trade
Educate the public about trade, the west, and energy production and consumption
Economic Goal
Facilitate energy and economic autonomy for the region
Aesthetic Goal
Create an inspiring, light filled, beautiful space that acknowledges its place in the world and in history
Values and goals narrative
The most important values…
Design Considerations (Facts)
Human/Technological Facts
Humans must interact with technology
Trade is increasingly high tech
Environmental Fact
The west is an area rich with resources and sparsely populated, save the coastal region
Cultural Facts
Westerners often appreciate their natural resources more than residents of other regions
Building site may be considered to some to be historic, although the city does not acknowledge it as such
Temporal Facts
Trading floors are disappearing quickly
Electronic trade will soon replace face-to-face trade
Economic Fact
Energy trade in the west is currently very closely linked to trade in the rest of the country, although it behaves differently
Safety Facts
SF is located in an active Seismic Zone- more info here
Building must have secured entry
Project Requirements (Needs)
Human Needs
Space for movement and interaction with people, space for interaction with technology
Environmental/ Cultural Need
To represent the ecological values
Technological Needs
Electronic means of communication integrated with the space in a way that promotes efficient trading
Aesthetic Needs
To be attractive to the trade community, to be attractive to the community at large
Safety Needs
Adequate structure
Spaces that easily limited in access to individuals with appropriate clearance
Space Program
Square Footages (total: about 75,000 ft2)
A. Trading Space/Floor/Platform/Pit/room-about 12,000ft2 (one quarter the size of the NYSE trading floor space)
B. Trading Technology- between 500 and 5,000 ft2
Routers, computers, machines, generators, mechanisms
C. Work Space for Traders (brokers, suppliers etc)- about 20,000 ft2
Booths and Posts
Communication Platforms/Stations/Spaces
Offices, meeting rooms, conference and auxiliary spaces
D. Public/Education Space- about 10,000 ft2
E. Regulator Offices and Control Room- about 10,000 ft2
F. Other- about 20,000 ft2
Lobby
Security, reception
Outdoor Space
Service spaces: bathrooms, storage, circulation, mechanical/utility, and coffee/snack bar
Miscellaneous
G. Adjacent Open space
Major Connections (and disconnections):
A. The trading floor must be closely connected physically and electronically with the workspace for traders.
B. The regulator and control room must be able to observe and record all visual and financial activity that occurs on the trading floor.
C. The traders must be electronically connected to quotes, their companies, and other traders.
D. The public/education space should be at the street level and visible to the public.
E. The connections for trading floor displays, routers, and other technology in the trading space should be secure, accessible for maintenance, anticipatory of change, and architecturally expressed (visually connected to users).
F. The trading floor should be visible to the public as part of the education center component, but not accessible to the public without security clearance.
G. The outdoor space should be within the security perimeter of the building.
H. Access to the building should be limited to one secured entrance.
Ideas (interactions) – “mini-visions”
A. Human-Technological Symbiosis (old type meets high tech)
B. Resource Regionalism via Energy commerce, the energy trade building promote regional autonomy /Spotlight clean energy (natural capitalism)
a. Aesthetically/formally
Using local building resources in building design
Minimizing energy consumption to set a positive example
b. Culturally/educationally
Public access to information about energy and the region
Act as a beacon, draw attention from the public
c. Economically/safety-stability
Empower regional governments to promote regional trade
C. Connection to history (place, type)
Revisit historical forms of places of trade
Allow for future technological expansion
Connect capitalism to environmentalism through architecture
(Descriptive vision)
Certain ideas are to be manifested architecturally through this project:
Connection of past to present
Something about use of energy, resources (they are for our use but we must use them wisely or something like that)
How trading will be improved by the new configuration of space
The Project
Design Method
On Approaches, Theories, Philosophies
Larger organic theory-
Design development is based on structurally enhancing transformations
Deconstructivist theory-
(Title): my approach/theory/philosophy
writing, blog and idea generation
nonlinear and indirect
Design Development: what actually happened, process
Design Solution: what I came up with
Conclusion
The design for the Western Energy Trading Center in San Francisco will facilitate liquid trade of energy resources by increasing interaction between traders, ensure the endurance of the trading floor as type by providing a model of human-technological symbiosis, and architecturally connect the past, present and future of human interaction through trade by highlighting the present trading climate with a signature building.
posted by MSR at 1:47 PM
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