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.

75 Rockefeller Plaza is a landmarked 34-story steel moment frame building constructed in 1947 for Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. It is situated in the heart of Rockefeller Center on 51st Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Midtown Manhattan. It totals 623,000 square feet, with typical floor size ranging from 14,000 – 30,000 square feet.

In October 2016, Gensler relocated over 600 employees to 1700 Broadway between 53^rd and 54^th Streets in New York’s Theater District. Their new space includes the second through sixth floors, providing a total of 120,000 square feet of office area. This new workplace is designed around Gensler’s workplace research, and incorporates an abundance of amenities, conference rooms and specialized meeting areas.

The 16th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, organized by the International Association of Earthquake Engineering took place from 9th January to the 13th January 2017 in Santiago, Chile. The conference covered engineering seismology, tsunamis, geotechnical earthquake engineering, design of new structures, assessment and retrofitting of existing structures, infrastructure and lifeline systems, preparedness and emergency management of large earthquakes, as well as social and economic aspects, and urban risk assessment.

GMS Associate Jessica Mandrick wrote an opinion in the STRUCTURE magazine column, Structural Forum.

Natural disasters devastate communities, destroy structures, halt livelihoods, and take lives. With each event, engineers aim to improve our practices to lessen the impact of future incidents. Reconnaissance trips following natural or manmade disasters can provide a valuable education.

The Judges in the 2016 Engineering Excellence Awards Competition have selected American Physical Society for a 2017 ACEC New York Diamond Award in the category of Structural Systems.

The Judges in the 2016 Engineering Excellence Awards Competition have selected Porcelanosa for a 2017 ACEC New York Platinum Award in the category of Structural Systems.

“Tales of Our Time” brings together a diverse group of younger artists to offer a broader view of the next wave in Chinese contemporary art. The artists examine conditions in contemporary China through approaches that often blur the distinction between fact and fiction. Employing media from ink painting to animatronics, they conceive of China more as a concept than as an identity, eschewing easy associations and symbols.

CANctuary, a structure of cans of tuna fish, designed by engineers and architects at GMS and currently on view at Brookfield Place, as won the Cheri Award of the 24th annual Canstruction competition.

Canstruction is an international charity competition where 26 teams of architects, engineers, contractors and the students they mentor, competed this year to design and build giant structures made entirely from cans of food. At the close of the competition all of the food from the New York City competition will be donated to City Harvest.

On October 18, 2016, Ramon Gilsanz of GMS presented to the members of the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY) about global trends in earthquake design and resilience.

The lecture looked at common features of buildings in a variety of regions across the world which are prone to earthquakes. Such features include weak ground stories, considerations for adding new floors, alterations and enlargement of existing buildings and the potential for soil failures like liquefaction and lateral spreading. Using his experience from earthquake reconnaissance trips to Chile, Virginia, Greece, Taiwan and Ecuador, Mr. Gilsanz then discussed the impact of resilience in structures, specifically how to apply lessons from other cultures to improve the built environment here in New York City. He concluded with a review of the NYC Building Code provisions for resilience.