Starting the new year with a new qualification – GMS Associate Susan Haynes is now a New York City Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector! Susan joins Partner Susanne Mackiw and the building envelope team providing our Clients with Façade and Parapet Inspection Safety Program inspections to comply with the Critical Façade Examinations as defined by Rule No. 103-04 of the Rules of the City of New York (formerly known as LL11) and Rule No. 103-15 Periodic Observation of Building Parapets.

GMS’s building envelope consulting expertise includes curtain walls, masonry, stone, precast concrete and specialty cladding systems, roofing, waterproofing, windows, glazing, skylights, repair, restoration, over cladding, Energy Code compliance, leak investigations, FISP (formerly known as LL11) and other inspections, peer reviews and due diligence studies.

Congratulations Susan!

After several years of planning and construction, the St. John’s Terminal building at 550 Washington Street is now home to Google’s HQ.  The project, which was completed earlier this year, is comprised of the adaptive reuse of the 90-year-old former freight terminal and a new 9-story overbuild addition. The new aluminum and glass structure spans two city blocks and is built on top of the original 3-story brick clad terminal that served as the end point for what was the Tenth Avenue elevated rail; known today as the High Line.

Last Saturday, Ramon Gilsanz, Founding Partner, joined a NIST/GEER team to survey the area surrounding the epicentral region. Here’s the report from GEER, Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance:

As a fun exercise, can you guess the correct percentage of women in our office here at GMS?

Yesterday GMS Partner Jessica Mandrick was named one of ENR New York’s 20 Top Young Professionals. She was cited as “An advocate for sustainable structures in a changing environment.”

This article for STRUCTURE Magazine’s November 2022 issue outlines the collaboration between the GMS team of Partners Karl Rubenacker and Jessica Mandrick, along with Project Engineer Lizhong Wang, and the building owner, Jack Resnick and Sons.

Work at Two Bryant Park, formerly known as 1100 Avenue of the Americas, is wrapping up after undergoing a complete transformation.  This 15-story office building located on Sixth Avenue between West 42^nd and 43^rd Streets, directly across from Bryant Park and adjacent to the Grace Building, offers exceptional views and amenities to its tenants. With floor-to-ceiling windows, this newly reflective façade is complimented by the structures and green space around it.  In addition to having views of Bryant Park, the building has convenient access to subways, Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

One of the great things about working at GMS is the diverse skills and perspectives of our staff. Congratulations to several members of our Building Envelope Group #GMSFacade on their recent promotions –  Daniel Kinsley and William Hutch are promoted to Project Managers, and Sara Gonzalez, Rafael Alvarez, and Joe Raffin are promoted to Senior Building Envelope Consultants.

Much applause and congratulations to each of the five of them! From left to right:

Typically by Thanksgiving, we can look back on our CANstruction sculpture competition and know that we have helped to feed our fellow New Yorkers. This year, of course, is different. We cannot build our designs in person, but GMS is still supporting @canstructionny and @CityHarvest online.

CANstruction New York has donated nearly 2 million pounds of food to City Harvest through an annual design/build competition where design professionals compete to design and build giant structures made entirely out of canned foods.  This year because of COVID-19, teams will be competing by fundraising and submitting digital designs of canned food sculptures.

Check back soon to see our digital design, and in the meantime, please donate if you can.

At GMS we are thankful for the continued support of our clients and colleagues, and we look forward to building more structures, facades and canstructions in the future.

Click here to donate.

On Friday, November 6, 2020, GMS Associate Partner Jessica Mandrick, joined several prominent structural engineers to present ASCE 7, Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures at the National Council of Structural Engineers Associations (NCSEA) Structural Engineering Summit. NCSEA in partnership with its Member Organizations supports practicing structural engineers to be highly qualified professionals and successful leaders.