Vista Skywall completes façade
installation at 336 Douglass St.

Brooklyn, NY Vista Skywall Systems, a New York commercial fenestration and façade installation firm, completed the façade for a new high-rise residential project located on Douglass St. on the corner of Fourth Ave. Vista supplied and installed the glass window wall system for the new 17-story multifamily tower. Known as 336 Douglass St., the 142,000 ft. building is in the Gowanus neighborhood.

On the north, west, and south facades of the building on floors 2 through 17, Vista furnished and installed a modern unitized window wall system with vision and spandrel glass, operating casement windows, terrace doors, metal panels, and HVAC louvers.

“Besides traditional curtain wall, Vista has extensive experience with window wall systems,” said Michelle Murphy, senior project manager for Vista. “Growing in popularity, window wall is an exciting alternative for architects, developers, and building owners to consider, since it is usually lower in cost and faster to install than curtain wall. Vista was selected for this project because of our vast knowledge of façade and glass materials and our ability to handle complex façade installations.”

The developer for 336 Douglass St. is JLL Capital Markets, and the general contractor was Artimus, LLC, of New York, NY. The project architect was Gerner Kronick + Valcarcel Architects of New York, NY, and Gilsanz Murray Steficek, LLP of New York, NY provided building envelope consulting services.

Vista sourced and installed 56,567 ft. of ECOWALL 141 unitized window wall system from Quest Products. ECOWALL, fabricated in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, is a window wall system providing aesthetics, flexibility, thermal efficiency, and fast, safe, efficient installation from the interior. The ECOWALL 141 system features a 5-½” back member, narrow 2-?” sightlines, and thermally broken framing using glass fiber reinforced 38mm depth polyamide struts.

The system readily integrated throughout the façade the Quest M-90 Inswing Casement window panels outfitted with 4” limit opening devices. The building setbacks at the 2^nd, 5^th, and 13^th floors created terrace spaces accessed from the apartments by another ECOWALL integral component, the M-82 Terrace Door.

The window wall system that Vista installed also incorporated aluminum metal and louver panels. The metal panels were used to cover vertical building columns on the exterior face to create dramatic visual effects which run the full height of the building. The metal panels used the window wall system’s bypass feature, hiding floor slab edges and blending seamlessly into the building’s façade. Special perforated aluminum panels and louvers were used in conjunction with individual apartment and other interior area PTAC space conditioning units.

Vision and operating casement window wall panels were outfitted with Guardian Crystal Gray tint SN68 low-E coated, tempered, double-pane insulated glass units with argon filling. The terrace doors were specified with Guardian laminated Crystal Gray tint SN68 low-E coated double-pane insulated glass units. Monolithic glass with Opaci-Coat Black on Crystal Gray or PPG Paddle Wheel back paint was used for spandrel applications. To satisfy compliance with New York City’s regulations, all vision, casement, door, and spandrel glass installed up to the 8th floor (75 feet above the ground) was specified with a bird-friendly collision avoidance pattern.

A two-tone color scheme for the window wall’s framing members was easily facilitated by the thermal strut separating exterior and interior components. For the exterior, a PPG Duranar Bronze color was used, and for the interior, a PPG Duracron Gloss White paint was used.

The 336 Douglass St.’s metal façade panels were finished in a variety of colors. Adding aesthetic interest to the high-rise façade, the architect specified PPG Duranar Bronze, Sunstorm Silver, and Paddle Wheel colors, as well as a special Pure+Freeform Molten color.

The 336 Douglass St. development is part of the continued resurgence of Brooklyn as “The Place” to live and work for young professionals. The project is built on former commercial and industrial sites in the Gowanus neighborhood, which were rezoned in 2021, allowing new high-rise multifamily housing developments to be constructed. The building offers 188 studio, 1-, and 2-bedroom apartments with 30% of the units set aside as affordable. The building also has 12,391 ft. of ground floor commercial space. Apartments have hardwood floors, high-end kitchen appliances, brick kitchen backsplashes, and individual HVAC systems. Amenities include a gym, a media room, a lounge, a yoga/dance studio, a laundry room, bike storage, a pet spa, and a rooftop terrace. With ready access to the New York City subway system, Manhattan is only a train ride away.