Long Island City, N.Y.
DESIGN TEAM:
SB Jacobs Group
PHOTO CREDIT:
© Porcelanosa
ALTA Long Island City, a 43-story residential tower in Long Island City, N.Y., needed an update. After glass curtainwall and window wall pricing for an acoustically challenged sight came back as cost prohibitive, the redesign by Stephen B. Jacobs Group Architects and Planners (SBJ Group) prescribed a Porcelanosa exterior tile system to clad the building.
“We used two colors—Cubica, the dark one, and the other was Extreme White,” recalls SBJ principal, Isaac Daniel Astrachan. “We decided to do punched openings on lower floors and transition to window walls on the upper floors. In between the two, they are staggered as it transitions.” Astrachan was so pleased with the results, another project on the boards at SBJ will be clad with Porcelanosa’s new Krion, a next-generation solid-surface product. It is available both in slabs and in molded figures and allows for an invisible joint.
“They have so many different textures and products and sizes to choose from, it is great; they are great to work with, because they have so many architects on staff, ” says Astrachan.
