We took a trip out to Calverton, Long Island, on thursday 11/6 to go to Island International Fabricators– specifically, the exteriors department, where they manufacture unitized facade panel systems. 
they are located in the old Grumman airplane engine manufacturing hangars, so they have enough space inside these huge buildings to lay out entire building facades flat on the floor and prefabricate them like that before trucking the panels into the city for putting up on a building. this way, they are able to have quality and climate control while building the panels, and they can build them much faster.
Their hangars are literally so large that at one end, there is a pile of stock, and at the other end, they are putting finished panels on flatbed trucks to send to the job site. the panels move along the length of the assembly line with giant cranes on overhead tracks.
They have separate hangars for different processes, such as metal panels or masonry finishes.
These guys are the facade fabricators for the HL23 building in Chelsea, and they had some mockups of the metal facade panels. they are currently making a giant mockup- all we saw was the frame that will hold the mockup, which was pretty impressive on its own.
they also have enough room to build and hold on to full scale performance and visual mockups, some getting as large as 2 stories tall. They have them lined up behind the hangars, in what they call “mockup alley”. it is an accumulation of different architectural styles and finishes, really a very bizarre and interesting side to the factory.
We also got to discuss our project with them, getting some feedback on the best way to unitize the system into larger panels, so that we can prefabricate the curtain wall into flor-to-floor spanning parts.
But despite all the high-tech tools, materials, and processes they have at Island, sometimes it just gets back to basics.
It was a fantastic trip, and great to see the process of facade construction for these buildings which are mostly just a subway ride away in Chelsea or other parts of the city.
Plus the 2 hour train ride was perfect timing for a nap.
