Bendheim Wall Systems’ Schermerhorn House Wins AIA’s Housing Award

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The Schermerhorn House Raises the Bar for Affordable Housing Design

The Schermerhorn House, an affordable housing residence in Brooklyn, NY, is a recipient of the American Institute of Architects’ 2011 Housing Award in the Special Housing category. The Award recognizes the best in housing design and promotes the importance of good housing as a necessity of life, a sanctuary for the human spirit, and a valuable national resource. Constructed with Bendheim Wall Systems’ Lamberts channel glass, the project elevates design standards for affordable housing and creates a community building that is comfortable as well as visually stimulating for residents and visitors alike.

Designed by Ennead Architects, the building’s primary northern façade is comprised of five channel glass tower elements comprised of 57 double-glazed unitized assemblies. The innovative curtain wall incorporates over 7,000 square feet of Lamberts channel glass and is the largest horizontal channel glass application in the United States, as well as the first to require a vertical center mullion.
Comprised of up to 60 percent recycled content, Lamberts channel glass answers the project’s strict demands for sustainable materials. The translucent Rough Cast™ textured glass channels obscure views and allow daylight into the building. The occasional transparent Clarissimo™ channels serve as vision lites. The building features both tempered and annealed channel glass.
“While the Schermerhorn House joins Bendheim Wall Systems’ growing list of AIA award-winning projects, it scores the first Housing Award for the company,” says Michael Tryon, General Manager of Bendheim Wall Systems, Inc. “The architects utilized channel glass in a highly creative manner for this budget-sensitive project. The horizontal orientation maximized the use of annealed glass and minimized the amount of more costly tempered glass. Commingling obscuring textured glass with clear vision glass eliminated the need for integrating separate window units, and unitizing the wall sections allowed the building to be enclosed more quickly than conventional site-built assemblies, a ‘home-run’ to the project schedule.”
The channel glass tower-like elements rise from a transparent glass base cantilevered over subway tunnels running directly below the site. The southern façade overlooks a landscaped roof terrace on the second level, providing a transition to the surrounding single family homes in the neighborhood. The House, developed by Common Ground Community and The Actors’ Fund, offers 216 units for single adults transitioning out of homelessness, persons living with HIV/AIDS, and low-income residents.
Bendheim Wall Systems’ translucent, U-shaped Lamberts channel glass creates sweeping walls of glass, including curves and corners, without the need for intermediate framing members. Reaching heights of 23 feet, it is an ideal daylighting material and contains as much as 60 percent recycled glass, including up to 40 percent post-consumer content.
About Bendheim

Bendheim is one of the world’s foremost resources for specialty architectural glass. Founded in New York City in 1927, the fourth-generation, family-owned company offers a virtually unlimited range of in-stock and custom architectural glass varieties. Bendheim develops, fabricates, and distributes its products worldwide. The company maintains production facilities in New Jersey and an extensive showroom in New York City