The Freedom Tower Will Rise  Monday, September 11, 2006
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, or SOM, the architects designing
the tower, have taken that imperative literally: If terrorists
pilot a fully-fuelled commercial jet into their building, they
believe it will stand.  "Based on the identified threats there
wouldn't be a disproportionate collapse of the structure," says
Carl Galioto, SOM's technical partner. "In many cases there
wouldn't even be a distortion; key elements of the tower would
not be deformed out of place." "It is generally impossible to
assure that a structure will not collapse as we simply cannot
predict what extraordinary loads may be put onto it," says
Robert Woodbury, Scientific Director of the Canadian Design
Research Network and a Professor at Simon Fraser University.
"What is most important is to give people sufficient time to
escape before collapse, and sufficient means of egress to
leave."  H/T Wired.  That's what the core is all about. All the
buildings' life-safety systems will be en