Introduction

In cities like Manhattan, where urban development and water bodies converge, floodproofing of structures is not just a regulatory requirement but a crucial aspect of building design. The coastal geography of New York City is considered highly vulnerable to flooding from extreme weather conditions. As we witness climate change and sea level rise, we anticipate flood risks to increase.

In a recent AIA NY presentation on flood and hurricane mitigation, a panel of experts, including building envelope consultants, a structural engineer, and an architect, shared their insights on addressing the challenges posed by extreme weather events in New York City. The discussion covered Flood Zone and Wind-Borne Debris Region designations, relevant building codes, and real-world applications, highlighting critical construction details from ongoing projects.

In this article, we will focus on Daniel Kinsley’s portion of the presentation, where he shared his expertise on flood mitigation for building envelopes. A future article will summarize Jessica Mandrick’s structural engineering perspective. GMS has completed several projects that showcase innovative floodproofing strategies to enhance building resilience and safety.

One Madison Avenue, one of New York City’s iconic structures, has undergone a major transformation, marking it as one of the most significant adaptive reuse projects of the 21st century. Originally constructed in 1893 by the renowned architectural firm Napoleon Le Brun & Sons, One Madison Avenue was once among the largest office buildings in the city, spanning an entire block between Park and Madison Avenues, from East 23^rd to East 24^th Streets.

Congratulations to both GMS Building Envelope and Structural teams for receiving project awards last week!

In 2014, Vornado Realty Trust engaged the GMS Building Envelope Group to assist in the re-design of Two Penn Plaza’s exterior envelope and plaza. The initial task was a feasibility study to explore possibilities for over-cladding the existing exterior wall.  Since then, additional studies, design possibilities, and structural support scenarios have been considered. While the transformation is still in progress, it is far enough along to see the “lines on paper” becoming reality.  The GMS team looks forward to completion and will be pleased to have worked on the project from start to finish.

We are very happy and proud to announce that Jose Mendoza passed his exam to become an NFRC Certified Simulator!  Jose will receive a National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) number as a Certified Simulator and he will be able to simulate/rate fenestration products. Jose’s name will also appear on the NFRC website as a certified simulator.

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:

GMS is excited to be working with Tishman Speyer, providing Building Envelope Consulting Services for the development of a new condominium residential development at 11 Hoyt Street in Brooklyn.  The building consists of a 57 story tower, approximately 770,000 sf, which rises to a height of over 600 feet with one cellar level below grade, and a green roof above a two–story podium. The tower houses 481 apartments with over 55,000 sf of amenity spaces.

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.

GMS Partner Achim Hermes will be presenting at the 2nd Annual Design Build Excellence Spring Symposium on Friday, April 26th of this year.

Achim will present on “Building Facade Essentials: Acoustical Design, Implementation, and Quality Assurance” together with AKRF.

Click to learn more and register http://www.eventbrite.com/e/2nd-annual-design-build-excellence-spring-symposium-registration-59106774955

GMS understands tall buildings. Our engineers and architects are experts in not just the skyscraper’s “bones” (the structure), but its “skin” (the envelope) as well.

On October 22^nd, Achim Hermes will travel to the annual Middle East Conference of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) in Dubai to participate in a panel discussion about “skinning tomorrow’s skyscrapers.”

GMS provided building envelope consulting services for this new 19-story hotel, the tallest modular hotel in the world, with a rooftop bar and lounge. Modules were fabricated in Europe and shipped to the US.

GMS is providing building envelope consulting (facades and roofs) for the new 58-story luxury residential condominium at 130 William Street. The facade is comprised of precast concrete wall panels with factory-installed windows.

GMS is proud to have collaborated on two projects that placed as finalists in this year’s Tall + Urban Innovation awards. 35XV (35 West 15h Street) was recognized in the Best Tall Building category; 56 Leonard Street was recognized in the Best Construction category. The CTBUH Awards recognize projects and individuals that have made extraordinary contributions to the advancement of tall buildings and the urban environment, and that achieve sustainability at the highest and broadest level.

150 Charles Street has won this year’s AIA Housing Award in the category of Multifamily Housing. These awards, presented by the AIA Housing and Community Development Knowledge Community, emphasize the importance of good housing as a necessity of life, a sanctuary for the human spirit, and a valuable national resource. Overlooking the Hudson River, this building’s design emphasizes direct access to nature while also providing a high quality indoor environmental.

The Urban Land Institute (New York) has awarded this year’s Excellence in Mixed Use Development to 252 East 57th Street. GMS provided façade and roofing consulting services for this new 56-story building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

New development is an infrequent occurrence in the East 20s, but from 121 East 22nd Street through to 122 East 23rd Street, Toll Brothers City Living is almost finished on their latest project, designed by the Office of Metropolitan Architecture. GMS is providing exterior envelope consulting services for this new mid-rise residential condominium building.

The largest of its stores globally, Adidas’ new North American flagship at 565 Fifth Avenue in New York City spans four floors, including a lower level,  and occupies approximately 45,000 sf. The overall design was conceived with the theme of sports and high school stadiums. In particular, the entry tunnel, reminiscent of a stadium entry, is made up almost entirely of glass with some stainless steel hardware and connectors; this load bearing glass structure at street level includes a glass ceiling and glass walls. The previous storefront was replaced with new glass panels spanning over 16 feet, supported only at the base and the head.

252 East 57th Street is a 60-story luxury mixed-use tower in Midtown Manhattan. The building’s residential program is organized with 173 rental units on the lower floors and 93 high-end, two- to five-bedroom condominiums on the 26th floor and above. Residential amenities include elegant porte cochère, automated parking, a double-height residents’ lounge, and a private spa with a 75-foot indoor swimming pool. The commercial component of the development includes retail and a public school.

The Judges in the 2016 Engineering Excellence Awards Competition have selected 150 Charles Street for a 2016 ACEC New York Gold Award in the category of Structural Systems.

520 West 28th Street

Zaha Hadid and Related Companies’ new residential building adjacent to the High Line has been in the news over the past few weeks. The condominium will have 39 residences, automated underground parking and a wide range of amenities including a 2,500-square-foot planted sculpture terrace.

On Saturday 10/17 and Sunday 10/18, the Annual Open House New York Weekend will unlock the doors of New York’s most important buildings, offering an extraordinary opportunity to experience the city and meet the people who design, build, and preserve New York.  From historical to contemporary, residential to industrial, hundreds of sites across the five boroughs are open to visit, with tours, talks, performances, and other special events taking place over the course of OHNY Weekend. Through the unparalleled access that it enables, OHNY Weekend deepens our understanding of the importance of architecture and urban design to foster a more vibrant civic life, and helps catalyze a citywide conversation about how to build a better New York.

Gilsanz Murray Steficek is proud that our Partner, Susanne Mackiw, AIA has been inducted to the NAPW VIP Woman of the Year Circle and featured in the June 2015 Member Spotlight!

150 Charles Street

GMS provided the structural design and structural special inspections and also provided architectural assistance in developing façade/building envelope design details for the 16 story multi-use project. The enclosure is designed as a metal and glass curtain wall beginning above the existing 4-story warehouse. The building aims for LEED gold certification.

The luxury residential development at 150 Charles Street in Manhattan’s West Village is nearing completion. 98 condominium units with estimated asking prices ranging from $4-$40 million (or approximately $7,000 per square foot) comprise the 300,000 square-foot building, situated on an acre lot. The project incorporates the structure of the existing 4-story Whitehall warehouse for the lower podium floors. Above, two towers are joined by a middle volume and cascade down to the Hudson River, allowing for spectacular views.

QLIC, the residential development at Queens Plaza North between 23rd and 24th Streets in Long Island City, is almost finished. The 21-story tower holds 421 rental units, double-height retail at grade and parking below grade. The building’s 28,000 SF of amenity space includes a rooftop pool, cabanas, a roof deck with an open-air theater and barbecue, a landscaped courtyard with a fire pit, media lounge, game room, fitness center, and other amenities on an occupied terrace.

Envisioned as a hub where students, faculty, researchers, and civic organizations can work creatively and collaboratively towards common goals in educational advancement, the Herb Alpert Educational Village will be anchored by New Roads School, a culturally and economically diverse, independent, non-profit, pre-K-12 college preparatory school located in Santa Monica, CA.

The reason we became engineers and technical architects is that we love to make things better – we learn how things work, take things apart and fix them! So a trip to the factory to see how things that we have designed are actually being constructed is always exciting. For a recent project, we did just that.

Several award-winning GMS projects are being spotlighted this year on Archtober’s “Building of the Day” tours, including Stapleton Library, Tavern on the Green and Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at JFK.

Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) has opened its biggest store to date, in Manhattan’s 589 Fifth Avenue at 48th Street, an existing 1950s vintage office building that was re-clad with an aluminum and glass curtain wall around 1990. GMS served as structural engineer for the 57,000 sf retail store (the size of a football field).

The Greater New York Construction User Council presented the Cubes at 120 West 42nd Street the 2014 Outstanding Project Award for commercial building.