United Nations Interim Porte Cochere

FTL Design Engineering Studio

Located on the north lawn of the United Nations campus in New York City, the U.N. Interim Canopy is a Porte Cochere structure which sits adjacent to the U.N.’s new temporary General Assembly building. The design serves as an entrance pavilion and security screen for the General Assembly delegates. The structure is envisioned as a relocatable building which is intended to be moved to another part of the campus at the completion of the renovation.

The renovation of the historic U.N. buildings is scheduled as a five-year project. Due to the temporary nature of the interim buildings, the environmental impact and sustainability of the Porte Cochere was a prime interest for the U.N. and was considered at outset of the design process. Realizing these concerns, the design team introduced the concept of relocate-abilty. Why recycle parts when you can recycle an entire structure? The Porte Cochere may be relocated to another location on the U.N. campus or to any other site of the U.N.’s choosing. With this as a starting point, the design was developed to have minimal anchorage points and to be modular in nature, using prefabricated steel trusses allowing for quick installation, which minimizes the impact of construction crews on site. The high-tech textile membrane’s function is two-fold: it provides support as a working tensile element equally distributing structural loads and defuses sunlight to naturally illuminate the space below.

The client required visual privacy for the delegates and ventilation for idling cars under the structure. The structure uses two fabrics, a teflon coated glass fabric as the main fabric and a silicone coated glass fabric for greater translucency in the arches. Functionally, the canopy provides shelter for the motorcades as they load and unload delegates, requiring ventilation for the idling cars inside. The open facades and linear vents that run the entire length of the trusses allow fresh air to flow freely throughout the enclosure. In addition to the Venturi effect natural ventilation, exhaust fans are mounted in the trusses to remove fumes as required.

The client and its security teams, including the Secret Service, were very satisfied by the project as we were able to provide the necessary visual privacy, the passive and active ventilation and a sustainable approach to the design by using a design that is relocatable to other parts of the U.N. campus. The client called the structure a “functional work of art.” The Porte Cochere offers an elegant counter point to the rectilinear architectural elements which inhabit the site. This temporary addition to the long history of the site is at once a suggestion of ideas that speak not only of the present but look forward to the future possibilities of the United Nations, its mission and what humanity may achieve.

Project details

Location: United Nations Campus NYC, USA
Size: 9,000 sq. feet
Fabrics: Sheerfill II-HTSaint-Gobain Performance Plastics, Atex - 3000 TRLP-D Interglas Technologies
Engineer: Joe Schedlbauer (FTL), Erik Smith (FTl), Wayne Rendley, FTL Design Engineering Studio, Wayne Rendley PE
Design: N.Goldsmith, A.Soni, M. Hilyard, A. Perlas, FTL Design Engineering Studio
Architect: M. Barratt, M. Tegnell, HLW International
Fabrication: B. Dreiling, T. McFadden, Structurflex
Project Manager: M. Patterson, Skanska USA Building
Installation: R. Leu, Structureflex