GMS is excited to begin the next phase of the renovations at Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, as they undergo a $200 million renovation starting now!

Centerbrook Architects, Reich + Petch exhibit designers of Toronto, arup providing mep services and Turner Construction round out the team. When work is completed in 2023, the museum will feature 50 percent more gallery space and new lighting, audio-visual and casework systems. The Peabody will have 15,000 square feet of new galleries across three floors, so visitors will be able to view objects from the collections that have never been exhibited before. Display systems will be designed to make it easy to rotate content and provide new exhibits. Our structural engineering includes the design of the building addition as well as the design of new displays and vitrines.

The GMS team includes Gary Steficek, Jessica Mandrick, Alissa Oelsner, Zoe Champion, Christian Vargas, Lizhong Wang and Miryam Varona Rogel. Image courtesy of Centerbrook Architects and Planners.

For more information, https://www.newhavenbiz.com/article/midnight-at-the-museum-yales-peabody-goes-dark-this-spring-for-a-three-year-200-million

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

During this unprecedented and challenging time, we wanted to reach out and share our current plan for the evolving COVID-19 situation, and how we plan to manage going forward.

Our priority is everyone’s safety and well-being as we continue to deliver on our business obligations with professionalism. While our offices in New York, New Jersey and Los Angeles remain open and accessible for essential personnel, we have encouraged our entire staff to work from home as much as possible. We have implemented remote working protocols that will allow our staff to perform their job functions efficiently, enabling GMS as a whole to move our projects forward minimizing disruption.

Additionally, we will cautiously continue to perform field visits and required inspections, until otherwise directed. We know these visits are critical and time-sensitive, and it is our goal to continue to perform these duties with additional precautions and protective measures in place both for our staff as well as our colleagues.

Finally, we intend to keep all meetings with our team and clients as scheduled, utilizing services such as GoTo, WebEx, Zoom and other services in lieu of face-to-face meetings in accordance with Social Distancing recommendations.

We continue to monitor CDC and Government directives constantly and will evaluate our response to this situation on a daily basis. Should anything change in the plan outlined above, we will send a follow-up to this email with further detail.

Working together and with a strong communication plan in place, we believe we can overcome the challenges of these times. If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to reach out to any of the GMS partners.

Wishing you all good health, and please stay safe.

GMS Team

GMS joins NYCares in their yearly coat drive campaign. This well-known nonprofit collects new and slightly used coats from all over the city and then distributes them to social service agencies, public schools, transitional housing, and more.

Winter temperatures can be extremely low in NYC and at the same time, the number of people in need is on the rise, so we are extending a hand to those who are the most vulnerable – this is the season to give back.

Thank you to all the staff at GMS, as well as their families and friends who have helped us gather 18 coats! These coats will help children, young adults and adults stay warm this season.

#coatdrive #actsofwarmth #nycares

GMS was honored with a Concrete Industry Board Special Merit Award for Structural Design for the Virgin Hotel project and an Award of Merit – Mixed-Use for Tangram.

Our team is very proud of how each project is turning out.

The Awards Dinner at Marina del Rey, in the Bronx was a fun night of celebration with our industry colleagues and friends.

Congratulations to everyone involved!

Congratulations to our Associate Partner, Jessica Mandrick, on being named one of five 2019 Emerging Leaders by the CTBUH New York Future Leaders Committee.

GMS is proud to have such a committed professional on our team and this award is well-deserved. Jessica started at GMS in 2007 as an engineer and has worked on a broad range of projects. Within our office she advocates for broader internal education programs, wider exposure to different project types and encourages participation in professional organizations. “It is important that engineers see hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes as more than just loads, and consider their societal impact. Engineers are well educated to take a seat at the table in the larger conversation on disaster preparedness, risk tolerance, and infrastructure investment.”

We congratulate Jessica and know this is just one of many honors she will receive throughout her professional life. And we thank her for her contributions to our industry.

The award will be presented during the CTBUH NY Regional Conference Reception on Friday, November 1, 2019 at The Penn Club in New York City.

The IASS 60th Anniversary Symposium (IASS SYMPOSIUM 2019) and 9th International Conference on Textile Composites and Inflatable Structures (STRUCTURAL MEMBRANES 2019) have merged into a joint international conference, FORM and FORCE 2019, aiming to provide a forum for state-of-the-art contributions and fruitful discussion in the broad fields of shell, spatial, tension and inflatable structures. The 2019 conference was held in October in Barcelona, Spain and it covered concepts related to material, design, computation, construction, maintenance, history, environmental impact and sustainability of shell, spatial, tension and inflatable structures in all fields of application.

Miguel Lopez of GMS presented a paper, Lateral Load Resisting Facades, co-authored jointly by the GMS Structural Engineers and Building Envelope consultants Miguel Lopez, Joseph Blanchfield, Philip Murray, David Kazibwe, Carolyn Bai, Ramon Gilsanz. The paper’s abstract follows:

Simple modifications to traditional curtain wall slab anchors allow designers to incorporate a structure’s building envelope system into its lateral system, leading not only to improved structural performance, but a reduction in the building construction’s carbon footprint. This approach of integrating architecture with structural design to optimize building performance and construction embodies the principles of efficiency, economy, and elegance championed by the late Princeton Professor David Billington. In this paper, the potential benefits of utilizing façade members to contribute to the building stiffness is studied by reanalyzing 510 Madison Avenue, a 2012 Class-A steel high-rise office building in Manhattan. The building’s lateral system is comprised of moment and braced frames. The building’s façade is a unitized aluminum curtain wall system that utilizes traditional curtain wall anchors designed to prevent the transfer of loads between the façade and the structure.

GMS Partners Philip Murray,  Ramon Gilsanz and colleagues Zoe Champion and Helena Ariza also attended the conference, noting the networking opportunities and planned workshops to learn about new software applications, among other things. For more information, click here.

Last Tuesday, September 24  SEAoNY celebrated their Annual Meeting of 2019.

GMS Partner Jonathan Hernandez  hosted the evening as the immediate Past President. At the evening’s conclusion, he awarded  Vicki Arbitrio with life membership as the 2019 SEAoNY Honorary Member and gave two scholarships in her name. Kamil Pisula of City College and Carol Shlyakhova of NYU are each studying structural engineering; their winning essays will be published in an upcoming issue of Cross-Sections, the SEAoNY publication.

Current SEAoNY Treasurer and GMS Associate Partner Eugene Kim was also in attendance.

For more information, click here https://seaony.org/event-3508398

Fairfield University and Centerbrook Architects and Planners have shared new images of the #Stags new Convocation Center. Have a first look here  https://fairfieldstags.com/feature/ConvocationCenter

This new 85,000 sf facility will include a 3,500 seat multi-use space for basketball, volleyball or university events and concerts. The seating can be reconfigured to allow two practice courts, or infilled to create an event or dining space. The venue includes a state-of-the-art broadcast and media center, as well as spaces devoted to the student athletes. The GMS team includes: Gary Steficek, Eugene Kim, John Hinchcliffe, Nam Hee Kim, Khaoula Msaaf, Nicolas Gomez, Phoebe Wang, Kristina Zarrella, Juan Escobar, Arkadi Goldin, Irina Goldin and Miryam Varona.

Image courtesy of Centerbrook Architects and Planners

Whether you’re shopping for a home or planning your next vacation stay, take a look at these homes GMS has engineered…

Among GMS’ extensive portfolio, we bring vast experience with single-family residences in New York and throughout the Americas.  Many of our projects are located on inland, mountain and coastal properties including eastern beachfront homes in hurricane prone regions within high velocity wave zones in the flood plain, and pacific beach properties where landslides and earthquakes pose additional hazards.  These homes are constructed using timber, steel, architecturally exposed concrete and extensive glass facades. Contact Phil Murray if you are thinking of building your own dream.

Courtesy of Restoration Hardware

The intersection of Ninth Avenue, Gansevoort Street and Little West 12th Street in Manhattan’s Gansevoort Market Historic District, has been in active use for over 150 years. It has served as an open air market, stables, a meatpacking warehouse and, as possibly it’s most notable incarnation, the home of the much loved bistro, Pastis. It is now the new 90,000 square foot home of Restoration Hardware’s Manhattan flagship.

The transformation from 19th century, 2 story warehouse space to 5 story, 21st century retail and design showcase, complete with a central atrium and glass elevator, was no easy task. The project involved gutting the interior of the original structure while carefully preserving the original brick enclosure and building a new glass and steel structure within.

To complicate matters, the building is located close to the flood plain and excavation was required to build a new basement and foundations to support the new construction.

The new structure is steel framed, using moment frames with composite concrete and metal deck floor slabs. This system was designed to provide flexibility in the retail layouts and provide support for the original brick exterior walls and the new awning along Ninth Avenue and Little West 12^th Street. Beams accommodate stone floor finish throughout the retail spaces and were designed to minimize foot-fall vibration.

The building, designed by Wormser + Associates Architects with façade by BKSK Architects, artfully melds old and new, retaining the original base and preserving the charm and character of the authentic brick facades. RH collaborated with Backen Gillen Kroeger Architects for the RH tenant design. The new glass and steel structure rises out of the base creating an open plan for retail including a rug showroom, a materials library, a coffee bar and a rooftop restaurant with panoramic views of the area.

GMS is well versed in the challenges of converting existing historic structures for re-use – click here to see some other projects or call Phil Murray or Carl Zanier to see how we can help you.

Courtesy of Restoration Hardware

Courtesy of Restoration Hardware

Courtesy of Restoration Hardware