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By Sara Hart
Written on the wall
Burberry, the London-based haberdashery
founded in 1856, is so well branded by its signature check
pattern of camel, black, red, and white that the clothes need
no other brand identification. In New York City, where there
is an epidemic of high-end, high-concept flagship stores,
the dignified purveyor wanted a competitive presence on tony
57th Street without the flashy demeanor of Niketown across
the street, yet as elegant as the opalescent LVMH tower a
few doors east.
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Burberry, New York
City
At the Seele factory in
Gersthofen, Germany, architects, engineers, and
fabricators collaborated to detail the metal-mesh
sections (right, far right). Eventually, the mesh
was changed from steel to aluminum to reduce the
weight of the wall. Seele determined that X-bracing
(above) was needed to stiffen the members. The
team built prototypes to study the connections.
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Burberry commissioned the New York office
of Gensler to create an envelope to enclose the elegant interiors
crafted by interior designer Randall A. Ridless [record, March
2003, page 203]. The site of the new building consisted of
the shells of adjoining town houses, the former location of
fashion house Escada, and the current, aging and inadequate
Burberry flagship.
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Burberry, New York
City
At the Seele factory in
Gersthofen, Germany, architects, engineers, and
fabricators collaborated to detail the metal-mesh
sections (right, far right). Eventually, the mesh
was changed from steel to aluminum to reduce the
weight of the wall. Seele determined that X-bracing
(above) was needed to stiffen the members. The
team built prototypes to study the connections.
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Before the “gymnastics of making
two facades into one”—as the challenge was described
by design principal Lance Boge, AIA—could begin, the
architects had to investigate the integrity of the two independent
shells, each one a structural hodgepodge, the result of decades
of renovations. “There were three or four different types
of construction,” says Belinda Watts, project manager
for the envelope and structural renovation, and the problem
was further complicated by the fact that the floor plates
in the two structures did not line up.
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