Gilsanz Murray Steficek

Gilsanz Murray Steficek LLP, known as GMS, is a structural engineering and building envelope consulting firm founded in 1991 and headquartered at 129 West 27th Street in New York City. The practice covers structural design, building envelope consulting, inspection and testing, and forensic investigation, with a portfolio weighted toward complex work on existing and landmarked buildings. GMS was structural engineer on the $200 million Yale Peabody Museum renovation and expansion in New Haven, where a four-story infill addition had to be framed against two occupied buildings on a constrained campus. The firm’s inspection and forensics practice supports owners on facade compliance and existing-condition assessment across the New York region.

GMS works from four offices, not one. Alongside the New York headquarters at 129 West 27th Street there are engineers in Bloomfield, New Jersey on 973-273-0077, Stamford, Connecticut on 203-548-7060, and Los Angeles at 725 South Figueroa Street on 213-943-4850. Staff collaborate across those offices on a shared network, and technical knowledge circulates through in-house case study presentations, published articles and conference talks.

Since its start in 1991 the practice has won more than 400 project awards and has worked with eleven Pritzker Prize winners — a by-product of taking on the structural and envelope problems that make ambitious architecture buildable.

The specialty list runs a long way past ordinary structural design: temporary shoring and support of excavation, dynamic analysis for motion perception of vibrations, seismic evaluations and upgrades, base isolation, blast resistant design of structures and facades, damping systems, adjacent construction assessments, pre-purchase and due diligence surveys, value engineering and peer review, feasibility studies, and code writing and consulting. Engineers here contribute to local, state and national codes.

On the envelope side the coverage is curtain walls, masonry, stone, precast concrete and specialty cladding, roofing and waterproofing, windows, glazing and skylights, over-cladding, Energy Code compliance and leak investigations. New York owners will know FISP, the facade inspection program formerly called Local Law 11, which the firm files and inspects for.

Inspection and testing runs through a dedicated Quality Assurance Group staffed with personnel registered with the City. The stated value there is early identification of practical site issues, so corrective work gets avoided rather than paid for.

The client list is broader than architects alone: building and property owners, developers, contractors, building managers, corporations, public and non-public institutions, artists, and engineers in other trades, on new construction and restoration alike.

The New York office answers on (212) 254-0030, Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 6:00 pm, or info@gmsllp.com.