Originally built in 1969, the building at 450 West 33rd street belied an inner structural beauty that was concealed in beige concrete with brown metal siding. This adaptive reuse project called for the removal the building’s existing facade in order to provide it with a new, updated skin to maximize visible light while still creating an energy-efficient and acoustically optimized system.

The new facade surface area is over 300,000 ft2 (27,900 m2) and includes an innovative pleated curtain wall system as well as a matching flat curtain wall system. Both pleated and flat curtain wall systems utilize unitized construction methods, insulated glass with high-performance coatings, and integrated BMU tracks for maintenance. The pleat geometry is optimized with a maximum outward slope just under 15 degrees, eliminating the requirement for safety glazing and the largest pleated unitized panels are approximately 20 ft (6 m) tall and 6 ft (1.8 m) wide, ensuring ease of transportation to the site. Front also designed steel spreader bars to distribute the new facade loads to the existing structure, as the original slab edges were not designed for these loads. The spreader bards additionally allow for easier panel installation and reduce the number of post installed anchors needed for the curtain wall installation.