Residential High-Rise
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497 Greenwich Street, New York City
Architects: Archi-Tectonics, Winka Dubbeldam, New York City;
David Hotson Architect, New York City
Acoustics: Shen Milsom & Wilke, New York City
Size: 77,000 square feet (23 lofts plus ground-floor retail)
Completion: October 2004

An undulating glass façade makes this residential building striking and acoustically challenging. To prevent sound from traveling from loft to loft through the six-story crystalline skin, Shen Milsom & Wilke worked with the architects to develop custom aluminum panels lined with heavy vinyl and filled with insulation that close the gap between the edge of the floor slabs and the curtain wall.

To reduce sound migration between lofts, drywall on party walls is extended to overlap the curtain wall mullions.

A mix of existing wood-framed floors and new concrete slabs called for special details to control vertical sound transmission. For example, resilient underlayment was used to reduce the sound of footsteps and other floor impacts. Wood-framed floors required extra-insulated drywall ceilings on resilient channels. Noise from the first-floor retail was isolated from the loft apartments with a substantial slab.

Photo: Courtesy Archi-Tectonics

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