AMLI Fountain Place is a 45-storey apartment tower located in Dallas, Texas. Located alongside the 1986 Fountain Place office tower, the pair of buildings are instantly recognisable in the city’s skyline. With the new addition designed by architect Page Southerland Page, a unique dark green glass facade and prominent angles were chosen, reminiscent of its sister tower which was much admired for its late-modernist design.
CoxGomyl were called upon to deliver a building maintenance system for the apartment tower, with the requirement for the facade access system to be incorporated within the peaked roof structure or behind the glass facade to be hidden from view when not in use.
CoxGomyl’s highly experienced team of design engineers devised a solution that blended seamlessly into the building aesthetic of the peaked roofline. What’s more, the team were able to utilise state- of-the-art 3D design software that integrated concepts into the building’s information model file (BIM) to visualise the result.
The building maintenance unit is characterised by a telescopic mast and jib, with the ability to achieve an outreach of 40.7 metres to provide complete coverage of the building’s facade.
To move the BMU in working position, the operators raise the platform up and telescope the mast upward until the limit is triggered. At this point the jib and canopy are above the roof ridge which allows for the 360-degree slewing and telescoping of the jib to reach all areas of the facade. At the end of the work day, the operators fully retract the jib and raise the platform before slewing. The facade access system is programmed to notify the operators when the canopy is parallel with the roof ridge. At that time the mast can be telescoped down to bring the system back to its parking position.
The installation team carefully coordinated delivery and fitting, with rigging and assembly performed outside of working hours to accommodate street closures, required to safely utilise a tower crane and forklift to hoist the building maintenance unit to the roof.
