An envelope that "breathes", providing high-performance insulation, selective ventilation, and porosity. The facade was thought of as a set of panels that can be further reconfigured through rotation and reflection.
Manhattanhenge by Scalar Architecture. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
Project description by Scalar Architecture
Our project is a transformative intervention on an existing 6 story 30,000 sqf early XXth century structure located within Manhattan’s Commissioner city grid.
The ideas for the innovative restoration effloresce in a new environmentally performative and digitally-fabricated envelope. Being located on a narrow street - mostly oriented East-West, the design conjures a material and geometrical system that circumvents an existing facade steel structure to establish an oblique longitudinal relation with the street. The new oblique geometry allows for direct sun access - insolation- as well as a series of visual relations between the interior and the streetscape.
In addition, the new envelope provides high-performance insulation, elective ventilation, and porosity. The envelope was conceived as a system of panels that can be further reconfigured by rotation and mirroring. The metal and insulation panels are built by a digital process of cutting and folding. In such a manner, the capacity of the design software to flatten three-dimensional geometry is closely aligned with the fabrication protocols.
The folding of the panels hence operates at a variety of scales: the folding provides the necessary rigidity to thin material, negotiates the connections to the existing structure sidestepping old columns, sites the project in the urban context of a narrow street, and ultimately affords a solar and environmental connection. In so doing, the design recalls the Manhattanhenge phenomenon - the bi-annual alignment of the Manhattan’s Commissioner’s grid with the sunset and sunrise- and prolongs it further throughout the seasons.
