Seamless Metal Mesh, Curved Wall Panel at Confidential Financial Institution in New York City

The Project:

In 2014, a leading financial institution made the decision to renovate its large headquarters complex in the heart of Manhattan Island in New York City. The architecture firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was tasked with combining two existing, adjacent properties into a single 2.6-million-square-foot renovated facility. Building work included an updated facade and a revamped public plaza along Greenwich Street. For the interiors, the firm of Gensler was retained. The combined structure includes four 98,000-square-foot trading floors connected by an internal staircase plus a new lobby and open, collaborative workspaces. There is a similar grand staircase linking two “client center” floors with an executive office floor.

The Challenge:

The first challenge addressed was successfully combining a 39-story office tower with a nine-story printing plant to become one cohesive workspace that met the company’s needs. The structural engineer for the project proposed replacing a solid wall with a row of columns which was ultimately done on the first three floors. From there, the architects sought to extend that idea all the way up to the roof to create a 14-floor atrium, but the client ultimately didn’t agree to that plan based on expense and the resulting disruption to workers.  The client also wanted to assign 20-30% more people per floor than they wanted to provide workspaces for, since roughly a third of the employees would not be working in the office on any given day.

The Solution:

The renovated design included a new entrance area and a three story “town square” where workers can meet and socialize at couches and tables. This was achieved by removing some portions of floors and substituting the wall between the two buildings with columns at the town square floors. The two upper mezzanine floors include elevator lobbies and open meeting areas. Amenities in this area include an art gallery, in-house cafe, and mounted television monitors; and now adjacent to the area is an auditorium and new cafeteria with multiple food stations.

Above this common area, 19 additional floors were created where shared workspaces provide employees the opportunity to choose any desk to work from while storing their belongings in lockers nearby. The global headquarter's site president was quoted saying, “We went to a 20% over-subscribed model, where we have 230 seats on the floor and we put 325 people assigned to the floor.” This model seems to be working well, particularly since each of the floors has its own small kitchen and seating area where workers can socialize and eat lunch.

The Role of Coiled Wire Fabric:

SOM wanted a material that would provide a continuous look around each area.  Cascade's Fabricoil® architectural mesh was selected because it offered the ability to splice the material together on-site to create one seamless panel that ultimately achieved the design appearance SOM was seeking in these areas – a feat that many coiled wire fabric manufacturers cannot achieve.  In particular, they wanted to cover an elliptical-shaped area in the "town square" in a way that was flexible and controllable. In order to maintain a pleated look while still alleviating the potential for someone to manipulate the material by pulling it up from the bottom, Cascade's architectural mesh was installed using bolts along both a top and bottom mounting track – each custom curved in an elliptical design that complements the space beautifully.

The Results:

The renovated building is more functional, more practical, and offers a much better design presence than the prior arrangement.