Bjarke Ingels Group designed the Grove at Grand Bay condominium buildings with two towers with twisting façades. The design serves two main purposes. First, it provides protection from extreme weather events including hurricanes. Second, the design allows for views of Biscayne Bay from all 98 units, 49 in each of the 20-story towers.
The towers have diagonally slanted concrete columns reinforced with composite cores of concrete and steel internal plates for the shear walls. Additional stability is provided by camber floor plates, each of which arches slightly in relation to the floor below. Additionally, the roofs have hat-trusses, where girders are cantilevered from the tower cores and connected to columns. Pressure-injected auger-cast pilings are driven, on average, 80 feet into the soft South Florida soil.
To maximize views, exterior aesthetics and balcony space without compromising weather and corrosion protection, Tecnoglass Inc. finished, fabricated and installed hurricane-resistant window walls, glass doors and metal framing systems finished with fluoropolymer coatings. Tecnoglass finished the metal framing with 22 tons of PPG Industries Inc.’s Duranar coatings in Acadia Silver and Bone White.
Carlos Amin, vice president of sales at Tecnoglass, says, “This was a demanding application that required the use of the very best materials. Our engineers designed 12-foot-tall, floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass doors with three panes of coated, ultra-clear glass. The balcony railings were laminated with two lites of the same glass. In addition to protecting the metal framing with Duranar coatings, we hermetically sealed everything at the factory and installed custom-made rollers on the doors to make sure they operated properly. Everything is hurricane-resistant and insulated.”
