New World Trade Center tower will honor the old and the new

Danish architectural firm Bjarke Ingels Group have revealed the grand designs for the new, 1,340-feet Two World Trade Center building that will overlook the 9/11 Memorial Park in New York City.

The building will be completed by 2020 and replaces a previous 79-storey design by London firm Foster + Partners.

The 80-story stacked boxes design will be located at 200 Greenwich Street, and aims to combine the corporate qualities of the Financial District with the historical characteristics of the Tribeca neighborhood.

Bjarke Ingels, head of BIG, told CNN: "The tower in many ways is the gateway between Tribeca and Downtown. Somehow I think the tower tries to incorporate that duality of being a citizen or a building in both neighborhoods."

"The side that overlooks Tribeca and the rest of the Eastside of Downtown is the more abstract, avant-garde, creative building where you see it's basically a vertical village of city blocks," says Ingels.

"What justifies, adjusts and aligns all of the diversity that you see on the North and the East suddenly becomes orderly and straight-laced towards the memorial, so in a way it's a kind of respectful and understated building."

Ingels was also inspired to create a relationship between One World Trade Center and this new building, in a similar style to the original Twins Towers.

"One of the things that was quite powerful about the Twin Towers was that they were two big silhouettes on the Manhattan skyline that had a relationship to each other. In their case they were twinning, they were identical."

Ingels says: "With the shape of One World Trade, the tower actually reclines towards the top, and the silhouette of Two World Trade actually expands with the same angle, so that in a way the space between the two buildings, although leaning, is still parallel. Not like Siamese twins or identical twins, but rather like siblings, or some kind of ying-yang relationship."

The building interiors are designed to appeal to various businesses and organizations. "We wanted to create almost like a series of different buildings but different kinds of spaces, different floor plans," says Ingels.

"Some of them are huge, open office landscapes with views on every side where everybody can see each other."

"Other places are more executive floors with more classic layouts."

The 1,340 feet structure has also been designed to allow for outdoor terraces and stunning views of New York City.

"I think a new tendency is that people actually desire outdoor space," says Ingels. "I just a bought a place myself in DUMBO and that I chose because I have an abundance of roof terraces on the outside, so you get this sort of inside outside continuity. Even if you're working on the 50th floor you can actually stroll out and enjoy the afternoon sun, even if you're in the middle of a busy day."

"The two buildings have a dialogue and I think with a skyline where every skyscraper is somehow on its own, I think this idea of having two buildings that have some kind of dialogue is quite interesting as a focal point for Lower Manhattan."