XXL glass facade for Manhattan

03/03/2023 | Print view

Even from across the street, the counter and the LED surface installed behind it are clearly visible. - © James E. Smolka — © James E. Smolka

Even from across the street, the counter and the LED surface installed behind it are clearly visible.

Individual glass constructions are more in demand than ever in architecture today. This also applies to existing buildings in New York. In the case of the office tower at 299 Park Avenue, the lobby was transformed into a transparent and inviting space, with glass in large formats from Glas Trösch.

The newly equipped lobby space of 299 Park Avenue is characterised above all by the translucency of the 27-metre-long - seemingly weightless - glass curtain wall. The extraordinarily high laminated safety glass (LSG) and delicate glass fins used for this were supplied by Swiss specialist Glas Trösch.

42 floors - the commercial building at 299 Park Avenue in Manhattan was recently renovated. In the process, the glazing in the lobby was also replaced.

The design of the office building 299 Park Avenue (high) focuses on a stylish, upscale, yet very bright and open design. This impression is largely created by the almost 27 m long and around 8 m high glass curtain wall of the ground floor.

With insulating glazing without transverse divisions, delicate metal profiles and emphatically slim, load-bearing glass gravity members on the inside, Glas Trösch was able to supply the necessary components to realise the highly transparent, almost completely dematerialised character of the facade.

Load-bearing glass fins for the facade

The high formats of the insulating glazing were each made of Swisslamex LSG with an SZR of only 10 mm on the inside and outside. Despite the total thickness of 45 mm, the panes of translucent and colour-neutral Eurowhite NG base glass do not show any green tint.

The Silverstar Selekt 74/42 coating on position two provides the necessary heat protection, but with its high selectivity hardly restricts the incidence of light: With a Ug value of 1.3 W/m²K and a total energy transmittance of 41%, 74% of the daylight reaches the lobby.

Also interesting: Coloured glass sculpture casts beautiful shadows

The widths of the frames were kept so delicate that they do not impair the view and the incidence of light. This is because behind the narrow metal profiles, there are glass centrepieces that absorb the dead and wind loads of the facade. These are Swisslamex LSG laminates made of three panes of ESG-H according to EN 14179 with a total thickness of only 39 mm. The challenge in manufacturing and installation lay primarily in the size ratio: with a maximum height of up to 8.17 m, the centreboards are only 381 mm wide.

The high, very slender glass fins take up the loads of the facade without restricting its transparency. The colour-neutral glass from Glas Trösch creates a very open, natural impression.

From Bützberg to New York City

Sophisticated logistics were used to transport the special formats from Switzerland to New York, where the STO Building Group took over the installation. When looking at the building, visitors can now already experience the highlights of the new foyer design from the outside: The eye-catcher is an almost 10-metre-long reception counter made of natural stone, behind which an LED installation with moving images enlivens the space.

Bronze-coloured mirrors reflect the digital content, so that the projection and the room seem to expand beyond their actual size.

www.glastroesch.com