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By Sara Hart
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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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The architects evaluated different ways
the two buildings could be combined to meet the client’s
growing needs. The resulting feasibility study summarized
five options, ranging from the demolition of the existing
buildings and the construction of a new medium- to high-rise
tower to a minor renovation that would leave the dividing
party wall intact. Analysis showed that a new building would
require a long construction schedule and high capital expenditures.
Due to a compressed time frame, the architects ruled out razing
the stores and chose to perform a radical renovation instead,
which included demolishing the structural masonry party wall
and replacing it with a series of steel columns and beams
to support the new floors. The redundancy of services—elevators,
stairwells, bathrooms, and storage—could then be eliminated,
capturing more square footage for the sales floors.
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Gensler created a refined,
layered facade for the Burberry flagship store in
Midtown Manhattan out of Magny stone, clear glass,
and bronze-colored aluminum. The partially unitized
curtain-wall grid was manufactured in a factory
in Germany (above). |
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Finally, with a plan to fuse the existing
buildings into one, the architects could turn their focus
onto creating a refined but visually animated facade. The
complexity of this problem cannot be overstated. In typical
New York infill buildings, the facade is often a generic curtain
wall that repeats the rhythms of its neighbors and addresses
the streetscape with varying degrees of distinction. Because
of the stature of the client, Gensler’s mandate was more
difficult. For Burberry, company image and urban context had
to blend effortlessly.
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