The winning entry in this year’s Design Challenge is a facade system rather than a building design. The R-IOT (Revolutionary Internet of Things) project, revealed after jury deliberations to be the work of the Berlin-based firm Priedemann Facade Experts, combines a dismountable unitized facade system (Fig. 1) with a physical/digital interface that monitors the performance status of components via integrated sensors and a digital representation of the system. (The abbreviation, Priedemann representatives say, combines the Internet Of Things with an intentionally ambiguous initial that could designate Revolutionary, Renovation, Refurbishment,Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and others.)

During the jury’s assessment of competition entries, juror Vishwadeep Deo, a vice president at Thornton Tomasetti hailed this proposal’s innovations: “keeping digital twins andmachine learning and AI (artificial intelligence) to run early detection and preventative pattern recognition.” The jury unanimously found that R-IOT, although it did not offer a site-specific design for the Broadway address described in the competition’s design brief, more than made up for that aspect by proposing a modular concept that can improve the longevity and performance of any curtain-wall system.

Described in the competition entry as “Revolutionary Cyber-Physical Maintenance andRenovation Strategies to Extend the Lifespan of Facade Constructions,” the R-IOT system renders energy-intensive facade refurbishments unnecessary by taking what it calls a”precognitive” approach to continuous monitoring and maintenance (Fig. 2). By continually providing data on three main interdependent parameters—building energy efficiency, occupant comfort, and facade component conditions—the system identifies degradations in performance proactively rather than reactively. When expected and measured performance diverge and components approach a predefined threshold value for failure, the system gives stakeholders a warning that enables timely and appropriate interventions in the form of component removal and replacement or maintenance (Figs. 3, 4).

The infill, spandrel, and terminal elements of the R-IOT facade are all designed for deconstruction, with standardized components in replaceable cassettes accessible from the interior. Transparent, opaque, or partially opaque infill elements can include features such as openable windows, shading systems, and other mechanical elements; sealants, gaskets, and membranes between facade elements are accessible when the infill element is removed. Opaque spandrel elements, the interface between the facade system and the building structure, accommodate a range of cladding elements, potentially including photovoltaics or green wall systems; supporting terminal elements allow staged removal of the system and access to hidden components such as removable polyamide thermal breaks. Chemical bonding is minimized, used only where unavoidable, as in IGUs or laminated glass. A mobile glass-handling machine enables on-site maintenance or retrofitting operations, reducing downtime and carbon emissions from transportation and heavy machinery use.

The system can also accommodate new design elements and material technologies as they appear, allowing aesthetic upgrades in the form of exchanged cladding or insulating components. R-IOT’s designers are “pointing to the fact that there is a relationship between these things, and that the service life of an assembly is determined by its weakest link,” commented juror Mic Patterson of the Facade Tectonics Institute. “Their approach is that it all needs to be replaceable…. With this kind of strategy, the service life is an irrelevant term, because what you have is a perpetual service life: as long as you can maintain the thing, you can go 1,000 years, and you may not have an original part in the assembly, but it’s seen continuous service.”

Jurors acknowledge that while the winning entry satisfies the requirements of the brief, a fully realized version of R-IOT will need to address practical questions such as specification of resilient materials and the mechanisms of sensor function. “Looking at U values and the glass performance,” observes juror Vivian Fu, an associate principal at Heintges in San Francisco, “the deterioration of the facade, a lot of times, is about air leaks and water leaks. Where’s the detection of that?” Stanford Chan, a senior principal at Socotec, questions whether the system should incorporate exterior access for maintenance, considering the disruption to occupants that interior access may cause. Use of standardized components, Patterson also notes, can imply potential creative constriction: “The problem with modularity is, how do you give the architects freedom of expression with a modular concept?” That the R-IOT proposal stimulates such discussion, however, commented Jack Robbins, partner and director of urban design atFXCollaborative, is “a good sign that we’re getting into little details: how does this actually work?”

The winning team will receive the 2024 competition’s $15,000 grand prize. The winning entry may be viewed in full below. Watch discussion of the winning entry and the 2024 competition themes via the “Curtain Wall Design for Longevity” course on Architectural Record’sContinuing Education Center: continuingeducation.bnpmedia.com. 1 AIA LU/HSW. For more information about the annual competition, visit metalsinconstruction.org. A special thanks to this year’s jury: Stanford Chan, Socotec; Vishwadeep Deo, Thornton Tomasetti; Vivian Fu, Heintges; Mic Patterson, Facade Tectonics Institute; and Jack Robbins, FXCollaborative

The post Metals in Construction 2024 Design Challenge Winner Announced appeared first on Metals in Construction magazine 2025 Design Challenge.

Metals in Construction magazine has announced the winners of its 2023 Design Challenge, which asked architects and engineers to submit their concepts for redeveloping an office tower for residential use in New York City’s famed Theater District.

The competition was speculative, but its design brief was based in reality: The popularity of remote work has put office tower occupancy around 40% of pre-pandemic levels, and building owners are looking for new uses for their properties. Redevelopment for residential use is one option that is becoming increasingly relevant given the severity of housing shortages in many cities.

To explore this emerging need, the 2023 Design Challenge asked entrants to propose innovative office-to-apartment redevelopment concepts for 1633 Broadway, a 48-story skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. Their proposals for the 2.5-million-square-foot building could alter the structural frame, building core and/or vertical circulation, in addition to replacing the existing curtain wall. Other aspects of the design brief sought residential layouts in line with current and future desires for apartment living in New York, as well as a demonstration of year-round environmental control and code-required natural ventilation along with other key elements of constructibility in the city.

“Each year the Challenge explores the role of the built environment in helping to resolve sociocultural issues. Last year it was to improve indoor environmental quality by envisioning a curtain wall system better able to regulate in real-time the ever-changing conditions of life indoors, an urgent issue brought to light by the pandemic. This year it addressed another emerging trend: office buildings losing tenants to remote work and exploring conversion to needed residential use. The ideas generated in the score of entries we received approached the problem in imaginative, commendable ways encouraging us to continue the magazine’s Design Challenge in 2024.”

Entries were evaluated by a five-person jury: Alyssa Brennan, senior vice president of residential leasing & marketing at Rockrose Development; Alastair Elliott, PE, LEED AP, principal and director of operations at Silman; Enrica Oliva, partner and COO at Werner Sobek New York; Dan Shannon, AIA, managing partner at MdeAS; and Claire Weisz, FAIA, founding partner of WXY.

After a day of deliberation and review of 26 qualifying entries in early March, the jury selected the winning entry, titled Vertical Village, for presenting a bold design that combined practical solutions to the challenges of office-to-apartment conversion while allowing room for aspirational gestures that would allow the building to make its mark on the skyline and on the surrounding neighborhood.

The jury presented the winning designs and their remarks in a webinar that may be viewed on-demand via Architectural Record’s Continuing Education portal. Below are some comments excerpted from their discussion of the Vertical Village proposal:

“Vertical Village had an ambition about architecture and it combined many of the strategies that we saw in other entries. You can see it did have an idea about stacking and doubling up and at the same time it used some really strong unit-mix strategies to do that. And it has an attitude about how this existing building will do both things: it will let light and air into the lower levels and create something new on top. As a combination it was very, very ambitious.”
—Claire Weisz

“This struck the balance in the strongest way of the typologies—an office building and a residential building—this recognized that they’re not the same thing but saw the common language, it understood the sustainability criteria, it understood its urban scale. The one thing it did extraordinarily was calling out itself in the landscape of New York.”
—Dan Shannon

“They are totally removing the existing core which for most of these skyscrapers is a significant portion of their lateral stability; they’re doing an exoskeleton approach. As a structural engineer I always get excited when a designer exposes and makes the structure ‘read.’ They were intentional about it. It balances maintaining as much of the existing structure as possible—it recognizes that you need to do some intervention, but do it in an efficient way.”
—Alastair Elliott

“Overall it is a bold move to shift the core, but also how does the performance of the building improve when you do that as well as when you look at what it costs and how comfortable it is to live in the building? In this case what I appreciated was that the team studied a layout for the facade panels that was very customized to the sun path; they looked at what it means to live in this unit during different times of the year. They did daylighting studies to prove that the amount of daylight that gets into the unit is dramatically improved. This very bold move of carving out a portion of the building had the benefit of then reflecting on the quality of life for the occupants. I really appreciated that in this entry they looked at it from all these different aspects. They were able to be so bold and at the same time so confident that in a place like New York City, that is such an aggressive market, this could be a good solution to repurpose the building and make it a more desirable option for residents.”
—Enrica Oliva

“They took the H-shape that was a more desirable layout and went a step beyond that. There are connectors between two complete towers, but then maximizing those and creating impressive amenity spaces took them to the next level. There are few buildings in New York City that have these connectors, but those that do are quite impressive and bold. What I thought was thoughtful about the unit layouts was that they are almost the same layouts but they thought about the demographics of each, that was really something they put a lot of thought into.”
—Alyssa Brennan

The winning team will receive the 2023 competition’s $15,000 grand prize. Along with Vertical Village, the jury chose five additional teams as finalists in the 2023 Design Challenge. The winner and finalist entries may be viewed in full below. For more information about the annual competition, visit metalsinconstruction.org.

Grand Prize: Vertical Village

Vertical Village Team

Atelier Ten: Chad Groshart; Joseph Guida

Buro Ehring: Tania Lopes; Juan Paulino; Kelly Tam; Holger Schulze-Ehring

STUDIOS Architecture: Ata Aksu; David Burns; Frank Gesualdi; Brian Kim; Anais Marston; Sara Schuster; Nando Tirado

2023 Finalists

Common Ground

Common Ground Team

Brian Lin, AIA; Christine Li, LEED AP; Chasce Tang

Double Up

Double Up Team

Geoff Lynch; Ross Wimer; Francis Cooke; Jeff Burke; Allison Lane; Rebecca Mechanic; Chris Shipper; Angel Flores; Garrett Harper; Hunter Gillespie; Naoko Oguro; Lizzy Shaw

Grid Commons

Grid Commons Team

Pickard Chilton: Michael Hensley, Deborah Lukan, Ashkan Shirani, Aashti Miller, Deep Chaniara, Dhyan Sharma, Yuhao Wu, Ziyu Chen, Shaoshuai Jiang, Mig Halpine, Erika Back

Green Townhouse Tower

Green Townhouse Tower Team

HLW – Architecture: Gabriel Bunea; Ricardo Amaya; Vatsal Upadhay; Michael Tegnell; Ikue Sone; Richard Brennan

HLW BEYOND – Sustainability: Jonce Walker; Anthony Rho; Emmy Funk

HLW Next/ – Animation: Bharti Kodnani; Chenzhang Wang; Lee Devore

Buro Happold – MEP Systems: Denzil Gallagher; Christian Von Holten

Midtown Green

Midtown Green Team

SCHORN: Kevin Schorn; Keely Brittles

ARUP: Architecture: Jon Cicconi, Vivian Kinuthia, and Nicolas Becker; Structure: David Farnsworth and Olga Pavlenko; MEP:  Mark Walsh-Cooke; Facades: Markus Schulte and Samuel Berrigan; Sustainability: Ilana Judah and Tess McNamara; Experience Design: Paul McConnell and John Moody; Urban Planning: Raju Mann and James Francisco

The post Metals in Construction 2023 Design Challenge appeared first on Metals in Construction magazine 2025 Design Challenge.

On March 6, Metals in Construction magazine and the Ornamental Metal Institute of New York named the winner and five finalists for its 2020 Design Challenge at the TimesCenter in New York City. The “Transform a Facade” competition challenged architects and engineers to submit their vision for transforming the facade of one of Manhattan’s 60-year-old buildings to reduce carbon emissions and address the city’s Green New Deal. 

The Metals in Construction magazine 2020 Design Challenge was conceived because of an urgent need for facade retrofit solutions in New York City. Seventy-five percent of the city’s high-rise office buildings are more than a half a century old. Most will still be standing in 2030, a milestone year on New York’s roadmap to carbon neutrality. Since buildings alone account for more than 80 percent of the city’s carbon footprint, equipping as many as possible with energy-efficient features is essential to reducing carbon emissions. 

The ideas competition sought to upgrade an aging, energy-inefficient high-rise office building in order to comply with NYC’s Green New Deal goals and render it more desirable space for companies competing for highly skilled employees in today’s labor market. The site chosen for the challenge was 63 Madison Avenue, a 15-story New York City office high-rise constructed in 1962. Its age makes it typical of the office buildings that populate Manhattan’s NoMad district, many of which are mandated to reduce carbon emissions by 2030 to comply with the city’s new building emissions standards, known as the Climate Mobilization Act (CMA). The CMA’s emissions targets are stringent: to comply, 63 Madison must cut its emissions in half by 2030.

The magazine awarded a $15,000 grand prize to the design judged best at achieving the goals of increasing light into the interior and affording tenants greater visual access to the outdoors while significantly reducing carbon emissions in accordance with the city’s targets. Titled “Second Skin,” the winning proposal was submitted by a team with members from WilkinsonEyre, Eckersley O’Callaghan, Josef Gartner GmbH, MRG Studio, and Level Infrastructure. 

“We were drawn to this exciting competition initially due to its sustainable credentials,” says Giles Martin, Project Director, WilkinsonEyre. “Rather than imagining a shiny new facade system, it genuinely seeks to solve a very real problem; many of New York’s buildings won’t meet the 2030 targets, but how to retrofit a solution without redeveloping the whole building? With our partners Eckersley O’Callaghan and Gartner we have developed ‘Second Skin,’ a loose-fit system that can be applied to any number of the city’s existing buildings. Giving it a new image and new function for today’s market. After all, the greenest building is one that exists already.”

Grand Prize: Second Skin

This year’s winner was chosen from a field of 31 qualifying entries. The panel of six jurors who awarded the prize include experts in office architecture and facade design and engineering: Gabrielle Brainard, AIA, LEED AP, CHPC, Architect, Building Envelope Consultant, Educator; Margaret Cavenagh, AIA, LEED AP, Studio Gang; Enrica Oliva, M.Sc. Struct. Eng., Werner Sobek New York; John Pachuta, AIA, Heintges; Mic Patterson, PhD, LEED AP+, Facade Tectonics Institute; and Stephen Selkowitz, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The grand prize was awarded at a half-day conference at the TimesCenter in New York City on March 6, 2020. The competition was sponsored by the Ornamental Metal Institute of New York.The Metals in Construction magazine 2021 Design Challenge will be sponsored by the Steel Institute of New York with the goal of addressing structural steel challenges in New York City. The full competition brief will be released in Fall 2020.

2020 Finalists

Active and Adaptive

Burning Scales

Transformed Simplicity

Hidden In Plain Sight

Atmospheric Veil

The post 2020 Winners & Finalists appeared first on Metals in Construction magazine 2025 Design Challenge.

The Metals in Construction magazine 2019 Design Challenge was conceived to generate ideas for making foot travel a more attractive, engaging component of living and working in a city. With urban environments overly reliant on automobiles, creating elevated, landscaped thoroughfares that encourage foot travel can reduce congestion and improve the overall experience of urban life. One testament to this is the popularity of the High Line’s transformation of an abandoned railroad spur into a pedestrian walkway, stimulating development in adjacent neighborhoods along the way. The High Line captivates New Yorkers in a way that few projects do. It also demonstrates the potential such projects have to revolutionize urban landscapes by serving not just as places for public recreation, but also, when properly designed, as preferred modes of travel for commuters to use on a daily basis.

The magazine awarded a $15,000 grand prize to the design judged best at delivering this connectivity while becoming an iconic urban pathway unto itself. Titled “The Midtown Viaduct,” the winning proposal “employs forward-thinking approaches to form, fabrication, assembly, and urban solutions that mitigate/synthesize the complex forces of contemporary cities,” writes the team from DXA Studio (see full team information below). The jury praised the design for its structural and fabrication feasibility as well as for presenting a compelling idea for streamlined pedestrian transit that still offered opportunities for a unique urban experience. A full audio recording of the February 25 awards ceremony is available here.

This year’s winner was chosen from a field of 45 qualifying entries. The panel of four jurors who awarded the prize come from architecture and engineering fields and include experts in urban design and infrastructure: Benjamin Prosky, Assoc. AIA, Executive Director AIA New York Chapter; Claire Weisz, FAIA, Founding Principal, WXY architecture + urban design; Enrica Oliva, M.Sc. Struct. Eng., Partner and COO, Werner Sobek NY; Paul Bauer, AIA, LEED AP, Principal, Dattner Architects. Jack Robbins, AIA, LEED AP, Principal and Director of Urban Design, FXCollaborative Architects, served as moderator for jury deliberations.

The grand prize was awarded at a half-day conference at the TimesCenter in New York City on February 25, 2019. The winner and finalists will be published in Metals in Construction magazine and its digital platforms. The competition is sponsored by the Steel Institute of New York.

The Metals in Construction magazine 2020 Design Challenge, themed “Create A New Urban Identity,” will be sponsored by the Ornamental Metal Institute of New York with the goal of reimagining the skin of an existing building in New York City. The full competition brief will be announced in September 2019.

The full conference program is available at https://metalsinconstruction.org/feb-25-the-urban-pathways-conference/

The competition Design Brief is available at https://metalsinconstruction.org/2019-design-brief/

Click project name to see the full design presentation by each team:

Winning Team:

THE MIDTOWN VIADUCT
DXA Studio Team
Jordan Rogove – DXA studio (Partner)
Wayne Norbeck – DXA studio (Partner)
Scott Hughes – Silman (Structural Engineer)
Shane Phelan – DXA studio 
Sarah Keane – DXA studio
Sando Thordarson – DXA studio
Shahab Heidari Faroughi – DXA studio
Roman Falcon – DXA studio
Axelle Zemouli – DXA studio
Ryan Barnette – DXA studio
Brian Hellar – DXA studio
David Scurry – DXA studio

Finalist Teams:

HIGH LINES
Lissoni Architettura Team:
Piero Lissoni, Principal of Lissoni.inc & Lissoni Architettura
Joao Silva, Architect & Competitions Coordinator
Fulvio Capsoni, Architect

Structural engineering consultant:
B&C Associati, Antonio Capsoni

THE NEXUS
Lukstudio Team:
Christina Luk
Charis Nicolaou
Edoardo Nieri
Ng Mun Yee

3D visualization:
Milos Zivkovic from Bitscapes

SNAKE NY
Konrad Brzykcy
Bartlomiej Bogdanik

THE SPINE
Team:
Mr. Andreu Estany – Architect, working at ESTEYCO
Mr. Joan Bardy – Architect
Mr. Paul Greenway – Student, 2nd year of Architecture at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh

Advisor:
Mr. Luis Castro – MSc Civil Engineer – ESTEYCO

TRESTLE
Andrew Barwick, Cooper Robertson
Iris Kim, Cooper Robertson
Jason Fung, Cooper Robertson
Shamil Lallani, Werner Sobek
Michele Andaloro, Werner Sobek
Nicoletta Meloni, Werner Sobek

About Metals in Construction magazine
Metals in Construction magazine showcases noteworthy projects that feature innovative use of structural steel and architectural metal in New York City’s five boroughs and adjacent Nassau, Suffolk, and, Westchester counties. To see recent issues of the magazine, visit www.siny.org/publications.

About the Steel Institute of New York
The Steel Institute of New York is a not-for-profit association created to advance the interests of the steel construction industry. The Institute sponsors programs to help architects, engineers, developers, and construction managers in the New York building community develop engineering solutions using structural steel construction. www.siny.org

Contact:
Metals in Construction
Gary Higbee, AIA, editor
info@metalsinconstruction.org

The post 2019 Winner & Finalists appeared first on Metals in Construction magazine 2025 Design Challenge.

The post 2018 Winner and Finalists appeared first on Metals in Construction magazine 2025 Design Challenge.

Metals in Construction magazine has and a jury of architects and engineers has announced the winner of its 2017 Design Challenge, a competition for architects, engineers, students, designers, and others from around the world to submit their vision for combatting global warming by reducing the embodied energy in their design for a high-rise building.

The winning entry, named Orbit Tower, is the work of a team comprised of architects and engineers from ODA Architecture and Werner Sobek New York:

Orbit Tower Team

Mark Bearak, Designer, ODA Architecture
Heidi Theunissen, Designer, ODA Architecture
Sonia Huang, Designer, ODA Architecture
Nofar Ashuri, Designer, ODA Architecture
Juan Roque-Urrutia, Director of Communications, ODA Architecture
Bernhard Stocker, Project Director, ODA Architecture
Eran Chen, Founder and Executive Director, ODA Architecture
Enrica Oliva, Director of Structures, Werner Sobek New York
Michele Andaloro, Specialty Structures Engineer, Werner Sobek New York

The grand prize of $15,000 was awarded to the Orbit Tower team at a half-day conference at the TimesCenter in New York City on February 24, 2017. The jury also recognized five runner-up teams for their competition entries:

Emboss Tower Team

University at Buffalo, The State University of New York: 
Jin Young Song, AIA, LEED (Assistant Professor, Dept. of Architecture | Project Architect)
Donghun Lee (PhD Candidate, Dept. of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering | Structural Engineer) 

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP: 
Chung Yeon Won, AIA, LEED (Associate Director | Technical Designer)
Bonghwan Kim, PE, AIA, LEED (Associate Director | Structural Engineer)
Keojin Jin (Designer)

James Erickson, PhD, MSc (AA Dist.) Assoc. AIA, LEED (​Arizona State Univ. | Environmental Designer)

In-Fill-In Team

Dimitrios Vitalis, Façade
Duc Ngo, Architecture
Vicente Plaza González, Structure
(Students of M.Sc. Building Technology, TU Delft)

The Peregrines Team

Jason Vollen – AECOM – High Performance Buildings
Ross Wimer – AECOM – Design
Rob Rothblatt – AECOM – Design
Xiaofei Shen – AECOM – High Performance Buildings
Aman Singhvi – AECOM – High Performance Buildings
Annabell Ren – AECOM – Design
Geoffrey Lynch – AECOM – Architecture
Mostafa Elmorsi – AECOM – Structural Engineering
Ungelli Picardal – AECOM – Structural Engineering
Alastair Macgregor – AECOM – High Performance Buildings
Victoria Watson – AECOM – High Performance Buildings
Amy Canova – AECOM – Sustainability

Structural eXterior Enclosure Team

HOK
John Neary, Senior Façade Specialist
Simon Shim, Senior Structural Engineer
Apoorv Goyal, Sustainable Design Specialist
Zhenhuan Xu, Design Professional
Zifan Liu, Design Professional
Michael Miller, Design Professional
Harsha Sharma, Design Professional
Mark Hendel, Senior Structural Engineer
Varun Kohli, Sustainable Design Leader
Matt Breidenthal, Regional Leader of Engineering
Nathan Hoofnagle, Architect

XO Skeleton Team

EYP Architecture & Engineering
Jason Olsen AIA – Lead Designer, Principal
Rebecca Frink, Architecture
Tanner Halkyard, Architecture
Ivan O’Garro, Architecture
James Newman, PE – High Performance Design Team Leader
Eduardo Castro PE, Technical Director – Structural Engineering
Daniel Olsted PE, Senior Structural Engineer, Principal
Mark Kanonik PE, Senior Structural Engineer
Cody Messier PE, Structural Engineer

CHA
Phillip Sutter, Structural Engineer

Renderers
Bluepost

This year’s panel of five jurors came from architecture and engineering fields and include some of the best known experts in sustainable design: Lise Anne Couture of Asymptote Architecture; Michael D. Flynn, FAIA, of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners; Hauke Jungjohann of Thornton Tomasetti; Craig Schwitter, PE, of BuroHappold Engineering; and Marc Simmons, BArch, BES, of Front Inc. Patrice Derrington, PhD, of Columbia GSAPP and CURE, moderated the jury’s deliberations. The jury sought to award designs that met the mandate to fully integrate the building’s skin and structural systems to provide not only environmental protection but also resistance to wind and seismic forces. Entries were judged on the amount of embodied energy reduced in the form of building mass, as well as on the overall performance of the integrated systems.

“The competition was conceived to highlight the importance of addressing embodied energy in creating sustainable enclosures,” says Gary Higbee, AIA, director of industry development for the Steel Institute of New York and editor of Metals in Construction magazine. “Studies show that the amount of CO₂ emissions embodied in producing construction materials accounts for more than 50 percent of the energy consumed during a building’s lifetime. The goal of the design challenge is to explore possibilities for reducing building mass, and therefore embodied energy, by employing a hybrid frame and skin structure.”

The competition was inspired by President’s Climate Action Plan and the Architecture 2030 Challenge. Meeting the aggressive goals for energy reduction established by these programs will require innovation in building design on a widespread scale. With this in mind, architects commissioned to design sustainable buildings must remember that the more highly energy efficient building operation becomes, the greater the percentage that embodied emissions account for in the building’s overall energy consumption.

The winner and five competition finalists will be published in Metals in Construction magazine and its digital platforms. The competition is sponsored by the Steel Institute of New York.

About Metals in Construction magazine

Metals in Construction magazine showcases noteworthy projects that feature innovative use of structural steel and architectural metal in New York City’s five boroughs and adjacent Nassau, Suffolk, and, Westchester counties. To see recent issues of the magazine, visit www.siny.org/publications.

About the Steel Institute of New York

The Steel Institute of New York is a not-for-profit association created to advance the interests of the steel construction industry. The Institute sponsors programs to help architects, engineers, developers, and construction managers in the New York building community develop engineering solutions using structural steel construction. www.siny.org

For more information contact Gary Higbee, AIA, editor of Metals in Construction magazine at info@metalsinconstruction.org.

The post 2017 Winner + Finalists! appeared first on Metals in Construction magazine 2025 Design Challenge.

The “Reimagine a New York City Icon” competition, the 2016 Design Challenge sponsored by Metals in Construction magazine and the Ornamental Metal Institute of New York invited architects, engineers, students, designers, and others from all over the world to submit their vision for recladding 200 Park Avenue (formerly the Pan Am Building, now the MetLife Building), which was built a half-century ago as the world’s largest corporate structure. This morning a jury composed of architects and engineers presented the results of the competition at a half-day conference at the Times Center in New York, where Nilda Mesa, the director of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, gave a keynote address.

The panel of six competition jurors included some of the best known experts in sustainable design from the fields of architecture and engineering:  Ben Tranel, AIA, LEED, of Gensler; Areta Pawlynsky, AIA, of Heintges; Billie Faircloth, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, of Kieran Timberlake; Fiona Cousins, PE, LEED AP BD+C, of Arup; Sameer Kumar, AIA, LEED AP, of SHoP; and Hauke Jungjohann of Thornton Tomasetti.

The jury selected six finalists, each with its own outstanding merits. Metals in Construction with support of the jury decided to distribute the $15k prize money equally among the six teams. The winners include members from leading international architecture and engineering firms and organizations: VOA, Werner Sobek, SHoP, Heintges, CASE-RPI, StudioTJOA, FXFOWLE, Thornton Tomasetti, Dagher Engineering, AECOM, and Lemay. The winning entries of the 2016 competition will be published in an upcoming issue of Metals in Construction magazine and its digital platforms.

The mandate of the competition was to reimagine 200 Park Avenue with a resource-conserving, eco-friendly enclosure—one that creates a highly efficient envelope with the lightness and transparency sought by today’s office workforce—while preserving and enhancing the aesthetic of the building’s heritage. The competition, which was managed by Metals in Construction, opened in September 2015, and deadline for final submission was February 1, 2016.

This morning, the prizes were awarded at a half-day conference at the Times Center in New York City. The keynote address was delivered by Nilda Mesa, the director of the NYC Mayor’s office of Sustainability, which was followed by a presentation by architect Peter Arbour, Assoc. AIA, of  Vidaris on notable case studies from around the world illustrating the most innovative technologies for the energy retrofit of facades and the analytical tools used to evaluate performance.

The second half of the program featured a panel discussion with the jurors moderated by Arbour, which was followed by the announcement of the winning finalists and the presentation of each winning entry by a juror. Finally, Gary Higbee, editor of Metals in Construction, announced the magazine’s upcoming 2017 Design Challenge. Next year’s challenge will be sponsored by the Steel Institute of New York, which together with the Ornamental Metal Institute of New York has published Metals in Construction for the New York design and construction industry since 1982.

The 2016 “Reimagine a New York City Icon” competition was inspired by President’s Climate Action Plan and the Architecture 2030 Challenge. Meeting the aggressive goals for energy reduction established by these programs will require energy retrofits of existing building stock on a widespread scale. With this in mind, designers commissioned to replace antiquated facades on notable office towers will need to strike a balance between preserving what is truly architecturally significant and integrating components that can offer higher energy performance.

“The competition was conceived to explore ways of retrofitting existing facades for high performance when preservation and innovation are competing priorities,” says Gary Higbee, AIA, director of industry development for the Ornamental Metal Institute of New York and editor of Metals in Construction magazine. “Recladding a building can give it a new visual identity and radically improve its energy performance in the process. But how do you address this with recognized landmarks? The answers we received in the form of submissions were full of innovative concepts but also underscored how crucial it is for architects and engineers to work together to find successful solutions.”

About Metals in Construction magazine

Metals in Construction magazine showcases noteworthy projects that feature innovative use of structural steel and architectural metal in New York City’s five boroughs and adjacent Nassau Suffolk and Westchester counties. To see recent issues of the magazine, visit www.ominy.org/publications.

About the Ornamental Metal Institute of New York

The Ornamental Metal Institute of New York is a not-for-profit association created in 1972 to advance the interests of the architectural, ornamental and miscellaneous metal industries. In this regard, the Institute sponsors programs to keep architects, engineers construction managers, and developers abreast of innovations in the use of these materials for architectural applications. www.ominy.org

For additional images and interviews contact Gary Higbee, AIA, editor, Metals in Construction magazine: info@metalsinconstruction.org.

WINNING PROPOSALS:

PANAM UNDER GLASS

Click here to view full design submission
IMAGE CREDIT: Courtesy of VOA Architecture

PANAM UNDER GLASS TEAM:

VOA Architecture, PLLC
Caroline Karlsen
Brian McFarland, Principal
Jacob Ross
Mavis Tang

Werner Sobek New York Corp.
Laurence De Bary
Viola Kosseda
Valeria Postorino
Silvia Prandelli, COO

PERFORMANCE-BASED PRESERVATION

Click here to view full design submission
IMAGE CREDIT: Courtesy of Gabrielle Brainard

PERFORMANCE-BASED PRESERVATION TEAM:
Gabrielle Brainard, AIA, SHoP Architects
Benjamin Martinson, Heintges
Berardo Matalucci, CASE-RPI
Brandon Andow, PhD, CASE-RPI
Mohamed Aly Etman, CASE-RPI
Naomi Keena, CASE-RPI

THERMALSWITCH FACADE

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IMAGE CREDIT: StudioTJOA

THERMALSWITCH FACADE TEAM:

StudioTJOA
Audrey Worden
Alexander Worden


HARNESSING URBAN ENERGIES

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IMAGE CREDIT: FXFOWLE Architects

HARNESSING URBAN ENERGIES TEAM:

FXFOWLE
Michael Buesing
Jim Bushong
Elizabeth Himmel
Ilana Judah
Patrick Koch
Brandon Massey
Mario Menendez
Gustavo Rodriguez
Austin Sakong
Melanie Silver
David Wallance

THORNTON TOMASETTI (Façade and Energy Modeling Consultant)
Vamshe Gooje
Jais Kwon JungWon
Silverio Patrizi
Nicole Peterson
Tiffany Broyles Yost

DAGHER ENGINEERING (Mechanical Engineering)
Elias Dagher
Ritwik Kakati
Josephine Zurica

VERTIMEME

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IMAGE CREDIT: AECOM and Volley Studio

VERTIMEME TEAM:

AECOM:
Jason Vollen, Architecture
Rob Rothblatt, Architecture
Ross Wimer, Architecture
Xiaofei Shen, Architecture
John Dillon, Architecture
Antoine AbiDargham, Structural
Mostafa Elmorsi, Structural
Pat Hauserman, Construction
James H. Ward III, Construction
Alastair Macgregor, Energy Simulation
Maria Spastri, Energy Simulation
Bryant Stanton, Architecture
Kate Speidel, Architecture
Tom Scerbo, Architecture & Engineering
Geoff Lynch, Architecture

Rendering Team: Volley Studio
Derek Chan
Mike Klausmeier


FARM FOLLOWS FICTION

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IMAGE CREDIT: Lemay

FARM FOLLOWS FICTION TEAM:

LEMAY (architecture, urban design, branding, sustainability)
Michel Lauzon, senior partner, chief creative officer
Andres Escobar – senior partner, design principal
Andrew King – senior partner, design principal
Simon Pelletier, architectural designer, lemayLAB
Nicolas Labrie, architectural designer, lemayLAB
Alexandre Lapierre, architectural designer, lemayLAB
Karen Piché, urban designer, lemayLAB
Alexis Légaré, architectural designer, lemayLAB
Anthony Bouchard, urban designer, lemayLAB
Marie‐Élaine Globensky, brand strategist
Kevin Wang, senior graphic designer
Real Migneault, associate, sustainability
Nancy Dubeau, urban designer, sustainability
Eloi Mayano, project assistant, sustainability

ECOSYSTEM (Energy, Performance & Simulations)
André Rochette, CEO
Maxime Jeffrey‐Gauthier, engineering, analyst

SEFAIRA
Simon Sawada, energy and daylight analyst

The post 2016 Design Challenge Winners appeared first on Metals in Construction magazine 2025 Design Challenge.

Seventy-five percent of New York City’s high-rise office buildings are more than a half a century old. Most will still be standing in 2030, a milestone year on the city’s roadmap to carbon neutrality. Since buildings alone account for more than 80 percent of the city’s carbon footprint, equipping as many as possible with energy-efficient features is essential to reducing carbon emissions. 

Among the most energy inefficient of this aging office stock are 1960s-era buildings enclosed with single-glazed curtain wall systems. These buildings are characterized by large glazed areas that create high energy demands for both heating and cooling, making them heavy contributors to the city’s carbon footprint. Owners needing to replace aging curtain wall systems in accordance with the city’s new decades-long plan toward lowering carbon emissions must find viable solutions. 

The 2020 Design Challenge invites architects and engineers to submit their vision for transforming the facade of one of Manhattan’s 60-year-old buildings to reduce carbon emissions and address the city’s Green New Deal.

Design Brief

The Metals in Construction magazine 2020 Design Challenge is an ideas competition to upgrade an aging, energy-inefficient high-rise office building in order to comply with NYC’s Green New Deal goals and render it more desirable space for companies competing for highly skilled employees in today’s labor market.

The site chosen for this ideas competition is 63 Madison Avenue, a 15-story New York City office high-rise constructed in 1962. Its age makes it typical of the office buildings that populate Manhattan’s NoMad district, many of which are mandated to reduce carbon emissions by 2030 to comply with the city’s new building emissions standards, known as the Climate Mobilization Act (CMA). The CMA’s emissions targets are stringent: to comply, 63 Madison must cut its emissions in half by 2030.[1]

The Challenge assumes that competition for tech company tenants—a significant and growing component of New York City’s leasing marketplace—is foremost on owners’ minds as they strategize to recover the costs of these energy improvements.

Competing means providing the amenities high-growth companies seek in an office environment. Two features in particular, light penetration into interiors and visual access to outdoor space, are beneficial to employee health and well-being. These benefits, in turn, are linked to increased worker productivity and retention. Savings in this area can be very persuasive when weighing the value of adding these amenities. 

It is for this reason that the publishers of Metals in Construction magazine selected this type of building as the subject of this year’s challenge.*  

Specific Design Guidelines

Your challenge: Submit your vision for transforming 63 Madison Avenue’s facade to increase penetration of sunlight into the interior and enclose the building using a curtain wall system that balances transparency, views, and energy performance. Your design must be innovative and demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of current technological advances in curtain wall enclosure and glazing. A panel of distinguished architects and engineers will award a $15,000 grand prize to the design judged best at achieving the stated goals of increasing light into the interior and affording tenants greater visual access to the outdoors while significantly reducing carbon emissions in accordance with New York City’s Green New Deal targets.

About the site: 63 Madison is located between 27th and 28th streets in Manhattan’s NoMad neighborhood.  

*Note: 63 Madison Avenue, the building chosen for this exercise has a planned upgrade program under its current owners and the competition is in no way meant to reflect on the viability of that plan. This is an ideas competition only, intended to promote ideas of sustainability and technological advancement in the area of facade design.

[1] Data on energy use of individual buildings can be found here: https://energy.cusp.nyu.edu and here: https://metered.urbangreencouncil.org

Submission Requirements

The submission process is composed of three parts:

• Entrant Information – Contact information of the individual or team submitting. This will not be shared with judges and is only for contact purposes. Enter additional team names in the “Notes” section of the Project Description Prompts.
• Project Description Prompts – A series of descriptive points related to the design and process of the submission.
• Performance Analysis – Quantitative analysis demonstrating how the proposed design improves thermal performance in both heating and cooling conditions.
• Proposal Visualization – Up to 10 pages may be submitted to represent the proposal. This attachment should be one (1) multi-page PDF file (max. 10 pages) formatted at 11”x17” (ledger) and can include supporting backup data, calculations, and commentary to supplement the images. Do not link or embed objects. Links to any video or animated components may be pasted into Project Description Prompts. Maximum file size is 20MB.
• All materials are due by Monday, February 17, 2020, 11:59 p.m. Once you register via this site, you or your teammates may log in and edit your competition entry as many times as you like until the deadline.

See Competition Rules and the FAQ page for more information.

Prizes

One grand prize of $15,000 will be awarded at a half-day conference at the state-of-the art TimesCenter in New York City on Friday, March 6, 2020. Along with the winner(s), the jury will select up to 5 honorable mentions for presentation and discussion at the conference. The winner and the top five finalists will also be published in Metals in Construction magazine and its digital platforms.

The post Design Brief for the Metals in Construction 2020 Design Challenge: Transform a Facade appeared first on Metals in Construction magazine 2025 Design Challenge.

• 

  Stephen Selkowitz

• 

  Mic Patterson, PhD, LEED AP+

• 

  Margaret Cavenagh, AIA, LEED AP

• 

  John Pachuta, AIA

• 

  Gabrielle Brainard, AIA, LEED AP, CHPC

The post 2020 Jury appeared first on Metals in Construction magazine 2025 Design Challenge.

It is for this reason that the publishers of Metals in Construction magazine selected a pedestrian bridge as the subject of the 2019 Design Challenge. The challenge is to conceive of a pedestrian bridge that connects the transportation hub of the newly adapted Moynihan Train Hall with the city’s largest development since Rockefeller Center, Hudson Yards, where studies project 100,000 workers will travel to offices there from the rail station each day.

Your challenge: Submit your vision for a pedestrian bridge that navigates efficiently between the two sites. The design must reward foot travel by providing a distinctive experience that transports the user into a different place, encouraging its use as the desired mode of daily travel. A panel of experienced architects and engineers will award the $15,000 grand prize to the design judged best at delivering this  connectivity while becoming an iconic urban pathway unto itself.

About the site: Moynihan Train Hall takes up two entire New York City blocks on Manhattan’s West Side, stretching from Eighth to Ninth Avenues between 31st and 33rd streets. The eastern half of the building across from Madison Square Garden and the present Pennsylvania Station contains the transportation hub in question, while the western half contains unrelated commercial use.

Hudson Yards is a large urban development occupying 28-acres that is transforming the West Side of Manhattan with construction of 18,000,000 square feet of state-of-the art commercial and residential space, including a new center for artistic innovation called The Shed. Accessible from the city’s widely popular High Line, competition entries must show the Shed as the termination point for the pedestrian walkway at Hudson Yards.

Specific Design Guidelines

The pedestrian bridge is to be of structural steel construction and span the activity below with a minimum of interruption and supports. It may be covered or open but maximum transparency is desired for both well-being and security. Your entry must show the pedestrian walkway originating at the transportation hub portion of Moynihan Train Hall and terminating in the vicinity of The Shed at Hudson Yards.

Elevation changes are permitted along the route, as are overlooks, kiosks, and other features. Access from street level may be provided at multiple locations. Keep in mind that its foremost objective is to efficiently serve the 100,000 commuters likely to use this pathway daily. And, of course, it must always be accessible for persons with disabilities.

Your entry must incorporate innovative design elements that make the bridge a distinctive, efficient, and desirable pathway for day-to-day, round-the-clock travel between the two locations. It must also clearly satisfy conventional design, construction, and sustainability standards. In addition to structural steel, the use of additional durable materials with long lifetimes, and of additional materials produced with fewer carbon emissions, will be considered in the judging. However, the required scope of this challenge is the goal of enhancing necessary foot travel by engaging pedestrians in an experience that rewards this mode of travel.

Submission Requirements

The process is composed of three parts:

• Entrant Information – Contact information of the individual or team submitting. This will not be shared with judges and is only for contact purposes. Enter additional team names in the “Notes” section of the Project Description Prompts.
• Project Description Prompts – A series of descriptive points related to the design and process of the submission.
• Proposal Visualization – Up to 10 pages may be submitted to represent the proposal. This attachment should be one (1) multi-page PDF file (max. 10 pages) formatted at 11”x17” (ledger) and can include supporting backup data, calculations, and commentary to supplement the images. Do not link or embed objects. Links to any video or animated components may be pasted into Project Description Prompts. Maximum file size is 20MB.
• All materials are due by February 1, 2019, 11:59 p.m. Once you register via this site, you or your teammates may log in and edit your competition entry as many times as you like until the deadline.

The post 2019 Design Brief appeared first on Metals in Construction magazine 2025 Design Challenge.