With the facility's expansion goals in mind, the structure is designed to carry two more floors in the future. In order to anticipate the additional stresses on the building that those future floors presented, the team developed several structural models to determine appropriate seismic and wind requirements both before and after their addition. Because the hospital is set back one bay at the sixth floor, large W44 x 335 transfer girders support the new floors and the potential floors above.

Column layout also presented a challenge to the design team. Because of the hospital's desire to create open, light-filled spaces in line with modern health care standards, the architects set column lines on the north and west sides of the building 9 feet 6 inches back from the building edge. The design team used cantilevered stub beams moment connected to the columns to create corridor areas free of vertical structural elements.

Curtain Wall System–Digital Printing on Glazing

The unique space created by the structural alignments was designed to accommodate the hospital's new Pursuit of Happiness glass mural onto Lenox Avenue. Aside from visible horizontal mullions at each floor line, the atrium's west wall is structurally glazed, presenting an uninterrupted canvas for Hayes's work. Each of the curtain wall's 429 panels was printed with a new digital, direct-to-glass colored ceramic printing technology much like putting ceramic frit on glass. The digitized artwork is printed on the #3 surface of the six-layer insulated glass units, directly under a PVB interlayer laminating it to the outer lite. To accommodate the building's show-stopping curtain wall, bent plates of ⅜-inch-thick A36 steel form the edge of the slab along the west facade. Three quarter-inch-diameter, embedded head steel studs (attached to the inside face of the bent plates) provide the additional capacity necessary at the slab edges for the curtain wall attachment. Because the printed curtain wall was part of a separate design-build contract, Silman's engineers worked with curtain wall engineer Arup to develop connections to the bent plates that could accommodate the necessary vertical deflection at the slab edge, as well as the lateral movement of the building. As with many design-build curtain wall systems, the hospital's steel sub-frame needed to be designed for maximum flexibility at the attachment points. Because the slab edge at the west mural wall was cantilevered out as much as 1 foot – 10-½ inches, the spandrel beam design uses HSS members connected with full-height stiffeners to keep them from rotating.

Strategy at Night–Backlighting

Because interior corridors pass behind the glass, it will remain unobstructed by furniture. At night, the fluorescent back-lit image comes alive thanks to the illuminated column-free space behind it, highlighting the historic scene from the past—the hospital's new face—for all who pass by.

3 Learning Spring School
Controlling Light

Project Credits

Location: 247 East 20th Street, New York
Developer: The Learning Spring School, New York, NY
Architect: Platt Byard Dovell White Architects, New York, NY
Structural Engineer: Leslie E. Robertson Associates, New York, NY
Mechanical Engineer: AKF Group LLC, New York, NY
Construction Manager: Cauldwell Wingate Company, New York, NY
Curtain Wall Consultant: William G. Young of Axis Facades, New York, NY
Structural Steel Erector: Metropolitan-Walters LLC, New York, NY
Miscellaneous Iron Erector: Metropolitan-Walters LLC, New York, NY
Architectural Metal Erectors: Metropolitan-Walters LLC, New York, NY; Jordan Installation Services, East Northport, New York
Ornamental Metal Erectors: Metropolitan-Walters LLC, New York, NY; Jordan Installation Services, East Northport, New York
Curtain Wall Erector: Jordan Installation Services, East Northport, New York
Metal Deck Erector: AC Associates, Lyndhurst, NJ

The Learning Spring School (LSS) is not your average New York City independent educational institution. Established by a group of concerned parents in the fall of 2001, LSS was conceived, built, and staffed for children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders.

The Learning Spring School curtain wall facade integrates with the rest of the building. Photo by Fredrick Charles, courtesy of the Ornamental Metal Institute of New York

Design Program–Educating Children With Autism

Not long after opening up in a small commercial building, the school realized that its facilities were inadequate to meet the very specialized needs of its student body. Adding to the challenge, as early intervention for children in the autism spectrum became more and more prevalent, admissions applications began pouring in, and enrollment quickly exceeded the capacity of the space. To address both of these shortcomings, LSS commissioned New York architectural firm Platt Byard Dovell White (PBDW) to design a dedicated building that would meet the school's growth projections and create an environment conducive to educating children with autism.

Design Approach–A Sheltering Curtain Wall

Whereas in some projects the purpose of a curtain wall system is to maximize views and daylight, the objectives in this specialized urban school were to mitigate harsh sunlight and minimize visual stimuli. With complete transparency not an objective, the architects initially explored a window wall system because of cost, but changed to a curtain wall system in order to ensure a more reliable enclosure. The design was made of glass, zinc, and an aluminum sunshade system that lets filtered daylight in while keeping autistic students calm and focused on the lessons at hand. What makes the facade unusual is that such systems are not generally used to enclose educational settings. However, to help foster the school's mission of enabling autistic children to succeed academically as well as socially and emotionally, PBDW laid out an extensive 34,000-square-foot building accommodating occupational therapy, drama and music, lifestyles, culinary arts, fine arts, science and computer labs, plus a library.

Each of these varied spaces was geared to fit the unique qualities exhibited by children with autism. Among the most critical of these is the tendency to become overwhelmed by sensory stimuli. “Generally when we design spaces for kids with autism we try to play down the environment,” explains Matthew Mueller, an associate architect at PBDW. “A lot of kids have sensory issues with their visual surroundings and others have issues with things that are too tactile or too rough. We tried to make the interiors calming, using materials that are not too distracting to help keep the students focused.”