The Elisa Truss System

Taking form in the trendy neighborhood between Chelsea and the Meatpacking District is 251 West 14th Street, a ground up, luxury condominium development in New York City, dubbed The Elisa. This residential project’s dynamic architectural design constructs a cantilevered 3-story-deep steel truss system stacked atop a traditional flat plate concrete structural system. The truss arrangement facilitates the unique cantilever penthouse units that jut out over the adjoining building.

The project underwent several architectural iterations and changes before landing on its current vision. The final design is constructed with a cantilevered 3-story-deep steel truss system stacked atop a traditional flat plate concrete structural system. The steel truss system was utilized by the Engineer of Record to facilitate the unique building cantilever along the full western side of the building which presented unique challenges from a construction engineering standpoint.

The McLaren Difference: Applied Ingenuity

McLaren’s Construction Engineering team worked with the steel fabricator throughout the duration of the project on services ranging from steel connection design to erection stability and sequencing. Handling these engineering services from start to finish under one umbrella allowed our Construction team to optimize multiple aspects of the project and leverage engineering expertise to suit the client’s specific needs. The delegated connection design for the project’s intersecting vierendeel truss systems was carefully created to be unitized in the shop while not impeding the ability for the system to be shipped to the site. This critical decision was made at the beginning of the project and carried through all design aspects. Ultimately, this enabled steel erection to be completed in only one weekend under 18 hours alleviating project scheduling and crane logistics.