Commonly referred to as “Stamford Station,” Connecticut’s historic Stamford Transportation Center is a critical junction in the I-95 corridor. Initially opened on Christmas Day in 1848, Stamford Station hosts the Metro-North Railroad, Amtrak, CTrail, Greyhound, Peter Pan, and CTtransit. Next to New York’s Grand Central Terminal, Stamford Station is the busiest station on the Metro-North line, with more than 15,000 riders boarding each weekday. In total, the station generates more than $30 million in ticket revenue annually, and the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) needed a renovation that could accommodate their growth.
Welcome to Stamford
Located west of Washington Boulevard between I-95 and a set of railroad tracks, the new parking garage would serve as a landmark for the city of Stamford when completed. The facade of the new garage and pedestrian bridge would need to stand out and be engineered for long-term durability considering the region’s climate and proximity to the sea. The CTDOT’s mission was to create an iconic architectural signpost for highway and rail travelers to see as a “Welcome to Stamford.”
The challenge was the proximity to the coast. According to Stephen J. Scharr, president, director of business development at Metalwerks USA, CTDOT is located a mere half mile from sea coast, making the project more complex from from corrosive elements like marine salt-spray. This fact required that all materials be coated post fabrication to ensure that the perforations, corner cuts and attachement clips were fully coated prior to assembly to protect against corrosion.
Project managers chose Metalwërks’ Sculpted 3D for the parking structure’s facade to give the project a movement-inspired appreance. Sculpted 3D is an innovative dry-set rainscreen system comprised of 100 percent metal. It is available in a variety of forms and interchangeable wall panel design schemes, each producing the boldest 3D forms possible. This gives the building’s exterior unmatched visual impact and distinction. According to Scharr, compared to traditional cladding, 2D materials, the 3D nature can create an undulating wave effect, making it much more unique.
Dynamic facade design
Sculpted 3D can be installed over continuous masonry, open steel, concrete structures or even as the outer rainscreen cladding in a wall assembly. Sculpted 3D offers architects significant design freedom, easily integrated with ornamental design elements and lighting.
For Stamford Station’s parking garage facade, designers chose a unique, wave-like visual pattern in unitized assemblies. They also incorporated an integrated LED lighting design element in the cladding that can produce a wide variety of colors and patterns, creating a dynamic facade. “The sloped surfaces provide a surface to mount and power the LED lighting,” explains Scharr.
The design required an engineered solution enabling the curving panel assemblies to span 3.5 m (11.5 ft) for attachment to vertical hollow structural sectioned steel supports. All the units were factory-assembled with internal supports and shipped to the site as unitized assemblies, making installation easier and faster. With proximity to the active rail yard and the busiest interstate (I-95) on the East Coast, Site logistics were challenging from the start, making unitization the only approach.
Scharr says when it came to the sustainability factor, “The design was an all-metal (aluminum) solution, with any waste going back to manufacturing or the recycling stream. A lot of the material was produced using some proportion of recycled (aluminum), homogenous material.”
As well, sculpted 3D is an innovative dry-set rainscreen system comprised of 100 percent metal, which is fully recyclable at the end of its product life. It is available in a variety of forms and interchangeable wall panel design schemes, each producing the boldest 3D forms possible for ultimate design creativity.
The panels also included photovoltaic grids that collect solar energy to assist with power. This can easily
be integrated with LED lighting or other aesthetic design components.