70 Hudson

custom feature wall

Spear Street knew they needed to modernize some elements to attract new tenants. That meant identifying the assets the building already had, what kind of tenants they wanted to attract and what upgrades would help them meet their goals. With the hopes of drawing interest from large, established companies—from financial corporations to tech firms—Spear Street decided to target the area that gives everyone their first impression: the lobby. The team brought in Studios Architecture and Structure Tone to transform the existing lobby into the kind of modern, dynamic space that tenants would be drawn to. Perhaps the biggest challenge—and the most striking feature—of the project was the custom feature wall.

CLIENT Spear Street Capital

CM Structure Tone

ARCHITECT STUDIOS Architecture

SECTOR Commercial

LOCATION 70 Hudson St, Jersey City, NJ

SERVICES Design Assist, Fabrication, Finishing, Installation Management

MATERIALS Aluminum, Steel Structure

The wall was designed to depict the Northern Lights in grayscale, immediately drawing people’s attention and creating a distinctive talking point.

200,000 holes were designed to
create an aurora borealis effect

The wall features a series of aluminum panels with CNC placed holes and specialized topcoats to achieve the aurora borealis. Accordingly, the panels themselves had to be installed meticulously.

With over 50,000 lbs
of aluminum across
the panels, structural
stability was critical.

The original design had transferred the structural load of the panels to the lobby floor; however, as construction began, the project team discovered the floor load was already near maximum capacity. The team went back to the drawing board to redesign the substructure, shifting the load instead to the wall substructure with additional steel supports. Every piece of steel and aluminum was not only fabricated with painstaking accuracy, but also marked with a unique identification number so it was clear where and how it should be installed.

“The team at Ferra are true artists, so the fabrication process took some time,” says Durando. “We worked very closely with them to keep up to speed on every stage and have everything ready for installation.”

“The impact of the lobby has transformed the space, making it a premier address sought after by new tenants.”

— STUDIOS ARCHITECTURE