Goldman Sachs Tower, New York, NY USA

For Goldman Sachs' new global headquarters at Ground Zero, GBL provided a completely integrated Work Access system designed to deliver oversized curtainwall panels, each weighing up to 4,700 pounds and measuring up to 10 feet wide by 18 feet high, from the street to their final installed locations as part of the building’s massive 690,000 square foot “blast enhanced” façade. At the same time, the system provided safe worker access to each curtainwall panel at key points along its path of delivery.

A cantilevered, 100,000 pound capacity staging canopy was designed to allow multiple trucks to unload their panels all at once, while two separate vertical track systems were alternatingly used for controlled hoisting of the panels up the side of the building. Transfer to a continuous monorail system allowed each panel to smoothly traverse the perimeter of the building in either direction, including along branches into various building notches and along the building’s long, curving west façade. The monorail itself was suspended from column-supported outriggers at ten floor intervals, to be raised using a synchronized rooftop hoisting system as work progressed. Above the roof, davit-supported monorails were utilized at each corner of the building, while a rooftrack-rolling tower provided both panel hoisting and full worker access to each face of the 30 foot high screen wall.