Who says you can't build luxury apartments with wood? We designed this building at 503-509 Communipaw Avenue in Jersey City with 4 stories of wood framing over a 2nd floor cast-in-place concrete slab.
Floor to ceiling windows are possible with a new method of construction called Force Transfer Over Openings. Heavy shear walls and metal straps above windows engage the entire façade to reduce vibrations. Textbooks are just catching up to this method.
For luxury, 12" Triforce wood trusses let piping through and give extra headroom. Sounds and vibrations are softened using Levelrock, a lightweight concrete topping made for plywood floors. A rooftop garden with concrete pavers will be supported by 16" wood trusses.
The 2nd floor is cantilevered with 4 stories of bearing walls at the edge, creating a design challenge. With the help of Finite Element Modeling software, it all works out. We're living in the future so why not use technology?
You can't tell from the exterior that it's framed with wood, the most economical building material on the planet.
The exterior will be clad with thin brick. Regular brick is too heavy to attach to steel angles supported by wood rim joists.
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