Habitat Magazine’s recent article on applications of infrared (IR) imaging touts the technology as “a new way” to find moisture. That’s curious, because SUPERSTRUCTURES has been using IR cameras to investigate water infiltration and other issues in building envelopes for nearly two decades.

SUPERSTRUCTURES conducted an exterior restoration of one of Robertson’s New York masterpieces, the MacIntyre Building (1892) at 874 Broadway in the Ladies Mile Historic District. This restoration earned the firm a Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award. Happy birthday, Robert Henderson Robertson (not to be confused with Robbie Robertson of The Band).

In honor of Earth Week, we’ve made a temporary change to our logo. While efforts to make everything—including buildings—“greener” tend to dominate the environmental conversation (especially around Earth Day), the energy already embodied in existing buildings should be higher on the sustainability agenda. SUPERSTRUCTURES has long subscribed to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s position that “the greenest building is one already built.”

Steve Job’s story of helping his father build a fence around the family’s home illustrates the attention to hidden detail that had long influenced his design philosophy. Jobs later insisted that the interior workings of Apple products—the circuit boards unseen by most—must be equally elegant. At SUPERSTRUCTURES, we take a page from Apple’s approach. Our construction documents—drawings and specifications—are as elegant as the restoration projects they define.

We restore the exteriors of the buildings that are the lifeblood of New York City: government buildings, hospitals, transit hubs, universities, museums, and public schools. We work on New York City’s most prominent buildings—those that make the city run as well as those that turn heads. And we do more of it than anyone else.

Both pre-modern (“historic”) and modern buildings are the same to SUPERSTRUCTURES in the sense that we don’t discriminate between ornate, 19th century terra cotta facades and glass-and-steel curtain walls. For our seasoned team of architects and engineers, reinforced concrete and steel are just as worthy of restoration as the decorative trappings of Beaux Arts, Gothic-Revival, or Renaissance-Revival styles.

Tempus fugit. Time flies. No matter how you say it, the expression holds true when you have a “new” building. If your building is just five years old, an Initial FISP/Local Law 11 report may be due.

…it would be this guy. We’d call him Bucky, after fellow visionary, R. Buckminster Fuller. Bucky’s innovative solution to the maze sums up our mission in a single gif: why follow convention when there’s a better, more direct path?

SUPERSTRUCTURES is excited to continue this fourth season of the Frost Jacking Day Tracker. "Frost jacking" is what happens when freezing temperatures cause rain or snow to turn to ice and expand cracks in a facade. As cycles of freezing and thawing accumulate, the cracks continue to grow and exterior hazardous conditions or interior water damage or leaks can occur.

When you think of historic buildings, a few things probably come to mind: centuries-old architecture, monumental public spaces, and Presidents’ mansions. Those are reasonable examples, but at SUPERSTRUCTURES, we treat every project with the same precision and thoughtful restoration strategy, whether the building is 20 years old or 200 years old.