The Empire City Casino invited Studio V Architects to develop an addition to their casino and racetrack in Yonkers NY. Part of the addition, included a new entry where FTL was invited in developing a new porte-cochere for this facility which would give the arrival at the casino a spectacular theatrical quality and provide a 30 car enclosed valet parking.

FTL developed a design for a gridshell concept based on a toroid form which was carved out to accommodate the traffic patterns and clad in an ETFE foil pillow technology for protection.  Using linear foil pillows running along the grid lines allowed for a highly efficient solution offering both rain and snow protection. An LED lighting system with a transparency gradation frit pattern on the foil gave the ETFE material a luminous and reflected quality with color changingoptions.

The inflation air supply was concealed in the steel frame structure and this ETFE pillow structure is one of the first examples of this technology in the US and a wonderful alternative to heavy glass structures.

Material Used :

1. Metacor custom steel fabrication

2. Nowofol ETFE cladding