For Beach 20th, a mixed-use development, a modular building system with metal wall panels and ample daylighting met many project goals including aesthetics, building envelope performance, durability, construction speed, and cost.
Magnusson Architecture and Planning PC’s design expresses the modular theme on the façade as the metal panels follow and highlight the bays of the structural chassis system.
The first floor is built with conventional construction methods, and houses commercial and community facility spaces, intended to facilitate activity to the street level. The residential portion, floors two through 10, is semi-modular, and combines a prefabricated, unitized metal panel system assembled onto a metal chassis structural system.
A modular building system comprised of individual, factory-manufactured pods was used to build the residential portion of the building. Additionally, pod exteriors are clad with MG McGrath Inc.’s volumetric modular facade system. The facade system is made up of unitized mega-panels panels with framing, gypsum sheathing, rigid board insulation, metal wall panels, and glazed-in, steel-reinforced polymer windows.
Tim Sauro, project manager at MG McGrath, says, “Each apartment module, or mod/pod, was built in a controlled shop environment and installed on site. Our team fabricated and assembled the modular facade mega-frames with our own custom, self-sealing bulb gasket system. Each mega-panel was then shipped to site and installed on the individual mods by Real Builders. The bulb gasket system on the perimeter of the facade ensures an air and watertight enclosure, and is the main differentiator of modular metal facades from unitized metal facades.
“Our modular facade system combined both metal and glass systems into one large panel with a modular gasketing system that was later installed on each façade wall of the pods that make up the complex. The final modular mega-panels included aluminum framing with a gasket system around the perimeter.”
MG McGrath Inc. fabricated and installed 4,645 m2 (50,000 sf) Petersen Aluminum Corp.’s 22-gauge steel F-Seam (flush seam) and R-Seam (reveal seam) wall panels onto unitized mega-panels in three colors: Kynar Champagne, Sandstone, and Zinc.
The 10-story, 9,290 m2 (100,000 sf) building is in the Far Rockaway neighborhood. It includes affordable housing units, 520 m2 (5,600 sf) of ground-level retail space, and 316 m2 (3,400 sf) of community spaces.
General contractor: Real Builders Inc., owned by Radson Development LLC, Great Neck, N.Y., radsondevelopment.com
Architect: Magnusson Architecture and Planning PC, New York City, www.maparchitects.com
Fabricator/installer: MG McGrath Inc., Maplewood, Minn., mgmcgrath.com
Metal wall panels: Petersen Aluminum Corp., Elk Grove Village, Ill., www.pac-clad.com
