Located in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge in lower Manhattan’s historic Seaport, the Tin Building by Jean-Georges is a sprawling culinary destination. While the concept is new—housing multiple restaurants with open kitchens, innovative retail concepts, and a central market—the building itself was constructed in 1907 as the center of the Fulton Fish Market. The Tin Building is a landmarked structure within a landmarked neighborhood. However, in the time the Tin Building Mancini Duffy and Manhattan’s Tin Building By Luke Carothers
has held its place in lower Manhattan, the structure has been subject to several events that necessitated its recent revival. In more than a century of existence, the Tin Building has earned its reputation as a historic structure, but its existence has been challenged by both flood and fire. After a fire in 1995 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012, large portions of the building’s historic artifacts and features had been damaged or destroyed. To preserve the structure and protect it from future flooding events, a plan was created to move the building 32-feet to the east and set about restoring the historic characteristics of the building. Mancini Duffy took over as the Architect of Record for the Tin Building project when construction started, and oversaw the execution of the design and construction of the building through its completion. This process included disassembling the historic structure and reassembling it at its new location, while also elevating it six feet to be above the 100-year flood plain. For the restoration process, this meant salvaging, saving, and restoring more than 300 historic artifacts for reassembly. Jessica Sheridan, principal at Mancini Duffy, describes the Tin Building project as “unique” in its ability to challenge the frames of reference for the teams working on the project. While all the teams working on the project were immensely experienced in their frame of reference, the unique challenges posed by moving, elevating, and restoring a historic structure meant that “everyone had to support each other,” according to Sheridan. Coordination between teams was also facilitated through BIM 360 and Navisworks. One of the primary challenges in this project was raising the building, which was a part of their sustainability and resilience efforts. Since the building had been damaged by flooding during hurricane Sandy in 2012, there was a clear need to elevate the building above the floodplain. However, simply raising the building where it stood would mean the building would touch the FDR elevated highway. This prompted
14
csengineermag.com
June 2023
Made with FlippingBook Annual report