|
New York City, NY--Twenty years later
COLORSEAL installed between a neighboring building and the 10-story
museum office addition completed in 1992 is still as resilient and
watertight as the day it was put in.
A personal trip to NYC to
visit the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum for the first time to
admire this historic landmark and the art on display also provided an
opportunity the inspect the
COLORSEAL installed at the time of the addition.
The nine-story addition designed by Gwathmey Siegal and based on a
background structure proposed by Wright in 1951, provides 51,000 square
feet of space for administrative offices and four floors of galleries
capable of accommodating large-scale art. |
|
 |
Where's the COLORSEAL?
The joint is between the
limestone-faced
addition on the left of Frank Lloyd Wrights iconic original museum and
the darker neighboring brick building to its left.
|
|
Structural
expansion joints are design elements necessary for accommodating
movements within and between buildings. These movements are
caused by thermal changes, wind, dynamic loading and unloading, and
seismic forces.
For most designers expansion joints are a necessary
evil. Evil in large part for the disruption of design aesthetic.
But expansion joints go
mostly unseen by the casual pedestrian.
And when cleverly
positioned, as in this case revealed slightly from the building faces,
the joint becomes simply a part of a shadow line that reflects similar
design elements across the buildings facade. |
 |
 |
From the ten
feet away the joint remains essentially a shadowline although the
"Limestone" colored silicone, chosen from
26 standard colors, provides color integration with the limestone
facade when viewed from close-up.
Viewed from
close up (BELOW: just 10-inches from the joint), the COLORSEAL is seen
to be firmly locked to both substrates.
To thumb
pressure, the material is resilient and responsive. The
stored-strain energy of pre-compression remains very evident and there
are no signs that the material is degraded or suffering
compression set
that might constrain its ongoing performance. |
|
COLORSEAL features
non-invasive anchoring. This means it is not
anchored to the substrates with metal pins,
screws, embeds or hard connections of any kind. This translates
into numerous benefits.
Neither the
neighboring owner nor the museum had to worry about drilling into the
existing brick of the existing structure. Nor did the museum have
to be concerned with drilling into their new limestone facade to anchor
the expansion joint.
The absence
of anchors means there are no thermal breaks in joint system that could
significantly impact the
R-value of the joint and subsequently the wall itself. And,
the absence of aluminum rails typical of alternative "strip seal" joints
further improves R-value while allowing the pre compressed foam to
expand into and fill voids at mortar joints.
|
 |
After 20 years of service, this
COLORSEAL is watertight,
blocks sounds from the city streets, insulates, is
non-invasively anchored and aesthetically
coordinated into the structures it bridges.
|
|
It is of
course better to start out at new construction with EMSEAL as the basis
of design for joint systems but retrofit is routine, practical and
lasting as well.
Lasting
expansion joint solutions in mixed-use, retail, office, sports, assembly, convention,
educational, performing
arts venues and yes, museums as well, is a central
focus of EMSEAL's.
The company's
unique approach to expansion joint treatment
combines innovative materials technologies with a fresh look at the
roles of owners, designers,
general
contractors, manufacturers and subcontractors, in achieving
trouble-free expansion joints.
The approach is grounded
in an integrated, collaborative process centered on joint treatment that requires all
of these parties to
think, design,
detail, specify, construct, fabricate, and install
three-dimensional solutions. |
|
|
 |
|
