Honored to have MARTOS’s Brilliant Veterinary Care project featured in the December 2021 issue of ArchDaily! Teaming with Group Projects, we provided structural engineering design services for The Brilliant Veterinary Care located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The existing building is constructed is steel framed with concrete cinder slabs and concrete encased steel members. The renovation was centered around a long, continuous ribbon-like wall that navigates visitors through the space, while separating clients and medical staff. The wall also establishes a zone where the ceiling was lowered to create more intimate areas within the 12’-0 tall existing ground floor space. New mechanical units were then discretely located in the plenum areas of the ribbon wall, eliminating the need for exposed ductwork in the client-occupied front-of-house spaces.
The renovation also required the enlargement of an existing stair opening on the ground floor to accommodate for a larger stair down to the cellar. This central connecting stair within the ribbon was designed to create access to back-of-house spaces located at the cellar level below. While security concerns made fully enclosing the stair a necessity, cladding its volume in frosted glass allowed for natural light to be brought into the enclosure as well as the primary staff corridor behind it.
To wrap the outer surface of the ribbon wall, 11/16” Wide x 11/16” Deep x 108” Long strips of pine cove molding were stacked back to back creating a “U” or fluted shape in plan. Oriented in the vertical direction, the units were then arrayed along the entire length of the wall and painted white. The shadow lines of the fluted strips and curved geometry of the ribbon wall provide rhythm, depth, and texture to the surface, which subtly change as one moves about the space.