We had the honor of presenting a developer from the Brodsky Organization the prototypes that we designed and built specifically for this project. Run by Brodsky, the Beaux Arts apartments is a two part building complex located in midtown Manhattan at 307 and 310 44th Street. It is at the cross street of First Avenue in the Turtle Bay and United Nations area.
The Beaux Arts building dates back to 1929 with the Beaux Arts Institute of Design at 304 44th Street accompanying it. Raymond Hood, a reputable art-deco architect and Kenneth Murchison, the former president of the institute, saw the potential of the area and assembled an elite group of investors and architects to build a new complex surrounding the Beaux Arts Institute of Design building. This led to the construction of the two Beaux Arts hotels which are now re-purposed as the apartments we see today.
As this is a land-marked building, Diamond had to first be approved by NYC land-mark commission for our window details and drawings to even begin this project. Along with the architect assigned to this project by the Brodsky Organization, we sent a few representatives as well to go and answer any questions or concerns the board of commission had. After receiving approval and being chosen as the manufacturer for this project, we knew we had a challenge ahead of us. Prior to the mock-up, Diamond had to start brainstorming new tooling and hardware to accommodate what NYC land-marks and Brodsky wanted. This soon led to 3 new products and features that we will add to our commercial product line in the near future.
One of the new products that Diamond developed is a balcony terrace door that compliments our steel replica series window and with this addition to our repertoire, we are better able to serve our clients now and in the future. Another new product is an aluminum corner window that is thermally broken. This had a very strict corner-post requirement of 2-3/4 inches wide and we could not be even an 1/8 of an inch off the mark. This was a more challenging feat to accomplish as we had to find a viable and functional way to combine the two frames while keeping in mind the IGU and how stable the corner post should be. Lastly, a new product feature that we developed is a flush frame system. This means that we were not allowed to have overlapping frames on this project, so when you close the window, it had to be flat and sleek. Some of the Beaux Arts windows have custom rectangular shape requirements, which you may see in the photos below.
This design and development process led to 17 new dies being cut with our aluminum extrusion provider. As well as a new door hinge that was custom built for the terrace doors from our hardware manufacturer in Taiwan, Ray-Tai Industrial Co. This is truly an exciting opportunity for Diamond Windows as this will be our first large scale project in Midtown Manhattan.
