A former
YaleUniversity architectural student has charged that designs he created as a student were copied by the architects of the
FreedomTower, which is now being built on the site of the
WorldTradeCenter in
Manhattan.The former student, Thomas Shine, of
Brookline,
Mass., file a Federal lawsuit in
Manhattan on Nov. 8 seeking unspecified damages for the alleged theft of his designs.The lawsuit, which jointly names the architect David Childs and the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP architectural firm as defendants, charges that the Freedom Tower design is “strikingly similar” to a building that Shines designed for the proposed 2012 Olympic Games in
New York.
In his suit, Shine says that Childs became aware of the designs when he served on a jury of architects that had been assembled by the Yale School of Architecture to evaluate students' work. The lawsuit claims that Shine’s Olympic design incorporated a twisting tower with a twisting structural grid and a textured facade, all elements that were part of the Freedom Tower design unveiled in December 2003.The cornerstone for the
FreedomTower was laid on July 4. The tower's final design, however, blends the visions of both Childs and Daniel Libeskind, the lead architect of the master plan for redevelopment of the trade center site.
