Given that buildings are responsible for 40% of global energy consumption, it’s desirable to improve their operational efficiency in the process of preserving them in general. But there’s a crucial caveat: embodied energy must be factored into the project.

For many years, a building’s array of exterior surfaces has been known as its “envelope.” To the extent that envelope is analogous to enclosure, one organization, the International Institute of Building Enclosure Consultants (IIBEC), recently declared that they’re retiring envelope in favor of enclosure, inviting others to join them in this semantic revolution. But we're sticking with envelope.

The latest seminar in our monthly continuing education series considered three options for roofing—white, blue, and green. About 95 clients and colleagues joined us for this look at roof varieties with Brian Kelly of Kemper System.

On this day in 1867, architect Henry Hornbostel was born in Brooklyn. With credentials from both Columbia University and the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, Hornbostel worked with various firms in both New York and Pittsburgh. He designed a wide range of buildings and infrastructure, from facilities for Columbia and Carnegie Mellon Universities to the Williamsburg Bridge. His only building in upstate New York is the New York State Education Building in Albany (1908-11), a neoclassical tour de force characterized by a colonnade of 90-foot-high Corinthian columns. SUPERSTRUCTURES conducted a facade investigation of this Albany landmark.

We frequently get variations on this question from clients. They also tend to ask some version of “if it were your money, how would you spend it?” We take our clients’ viewpoint by addressing these common questions on every project. This is part of why we’ve been retained for more exterior restoration projects than any other firm in NYC.

Many of our projects focus on single elements of a building’s exterior envelope, such as a facade, roof, or fenestration. In the case of NYU’s 404 Lafayette / 708 Broadway facility, it was “all of the above,” and more.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs or “drones”) are everywhere—from assisting first responders to delivering pizza. Everywhere, that is, except in New York City. You may have heard that drone use is prohibited within the five boroughs. That’s essentially true,* thanks to a 1948 law that requires all aircraft to take off and land only from airports, as well as FAA restrictions on airspace that eliminate most of the skies over the Big Apple. But for SUPERSTRUCTURES and our clients, this ban is a barrier to using drones for facade inspections through methods like our SurfaceCapture,SM which relies on UAVs to help us create high-resolution scans of a facade for off-site assessment.

SUPERSTRUCTURES’ Principal Paul Millman introduced our latest lunch-and-learn seminar with a phrase familiar to physicians: “First, do no harm.” No, we’re not expanding our practice to include medical procedures, but the analogy is apt for non-destructive testing, the subject of the day’s presentation, “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Infrared Thermography (and Electrical Impedance) Testing…But Were Afraid to Ask” by Barry Drogin, our Director of Non-Destructive Testing & Evaluation. Like the latest medical diagnostics tools, infrared cameras and electrical impedance meters offer a non-invasive assessment of the “patient” (in this case, a building).

Sidewalk sheds provide necessary protections for pedestrians but, like pop flies and Skylab, they eventually come down. Eventually may be the operative word here. Take, for example, the shed that’s being dismantled after 11 years (!) as a fixture of 280 Broadway. SUPERSTRUCTURES conducted an investigation of the building’s exterior, identifying a long list of defects, now remediated. We’re proud to have played a part in the process that made it possible to begin removing the building’s intrusive (but necessary) shed.

Please join us for an evening continuing education event: Infrared Thermography and Electrical Impedance Testing for Building Envelope Assessment. Barry Drogin, SUPERSTRUCTURES' Director of Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation, will discuss when—and when not—to use infrared and electrical impedance testing and how to interpret the results to detect leaks, heat loss, and other building envelope issues. Wednesday, July 17, 2019, 6:00-7:00pm at Superstructures.