A Day on the West Side with Heintges' Grete Grubelich

Special Inspections at NYU's 181 Mercer, photography by Trey Thomas.

Grete Grubelich is a façade consultant at Heintges Consulting Architects & Engineers, an award-winning professional consulting firm specializing in the design and implementation of the building envelope. She holds a Master’s of Architecture from Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation (2016) and a Bachelor's of Arts in Visual Arts from The University of Chicago (2013). Before joining Heintges, Grete spent the past four years at SOM, focusing on large-scale architecture with institutional and healthcare clients.

Her day involves a morning swim, a cycling commute along the Hudson River, special inspections, and winding down with The Chair.

6:15am: The day starts with the sound of a coffee cup being set on my nightstand. My partner and I make time to chat before we’re both off on our busy days. I typically spend the next hour walking our dog in Central Park, but today I’m going for a swim. Though I competed through college, these days I just use it to clear my mind and settle restlessness. I get about three thousand yards in, chat with some pool-friends, and make my way back home.

8:00am: I hop on my bike and start my commute down Riverside Park to the office. When I joined Heintges it was great to learn that there is a big cycling culture, and an active lifestyle culture more generally. Bikers, runners, martial artists, climbers, and swimmers: I felt that I found my people. As I cruise through midtown, I make mental note of buildings under construction and take in the sights and sounds of the city as it wakes up.

9:00am: Our team jumps on to our weekly façade coordination meeting with Foster + Partners, Adamson Associates Architects, and Silman Structural Engineers, among other consultants. I look forward to this meeting all week. The project is still in the design phase and it’s our greatest level of involvement. We empower the architects by equipping them with the technical tools to realize their vision, and here the vision is simply stunning. There’s always a collaborative energy in the room; it’s the kind of integration of design and engineering I yearn for. We finish reviewing markups and talk next steps while I’m putting on my construction boots out of view.

10:30am: Hardhat in hand, I take the subway down to Bleecker Street. Heintges is performing Special Inspections on 181 Mercer, New York University’s 750,000sf multi-purpose center for students and faculty. When I joined the team, I shadowed my colleagues through this process. Jessica Young, Samantha Leung, and Brian Delaney each expertly guided me through the compliance criteria and patiently fielded all of my questions. These inspections are a team effort that require great observation, documentation, and communication between everyone involved.

The goal is to document work that is not in conformance with the shop drawings and then review its remediation before interior build-out begins. To do this, one must first be familiar with the shop drawings and then be able to recognize any deviations. Are the framing components installed and aligned as indicated? Are the anchors correctly placed, welded, bolted and finished? Unit by unit, I comb through a mental checklist, scanning over the joinery, gaskets, seals, insulation, flashing, etc. to confirm that the envelope is built according to its approved design.

12:30pm: Time for a quick lunch before heading back to the office. Today I catch up with a friend from grad school, Lindsey Wikstrom, cofounder of the architecture practice Mattaforma. What started as biweekly Zoom calls during the peak of Covid evolved into lively chats on all things architecture. From practice operations and material supply chains to essays we’ve been reading, talking with Lindsey always opens up a new perspective and leaves me feeling reinvigorated about the possibilities of architecture.

Detail Review with Principal Daniel Vos, photography by Trey Thomas

Research in the Glass Library, photography by Trey Thomas.

1:00pm: I’m back at the office and my calendar is blocked out for focused work. I spend the next hour reviewing Design Assist progress submittals from the façade contractor on a new East Coast campus building. Some of the questions I’ll ask myself while reviewing the details are: Is the Architect’s design intent being followed? Do plan details transition correctly to section details? What are the finishes of the fasteners in wet areas? Is the weather and air seal continuous? These are just a few to get me started.

2:00pm: I pop over to our university project PM, Andrew Maier, to review my initial markups on the submittals. As we compare notes, Andrew and I will thoroughly examine every detail, looking for a continuous dual-seal system, thermal performance, management of water within the system, allowable movements, and anchors. With Andrew’s approval, we neatly wrap up our comments and send them off to the Architect for review.

3:00pm: Switching gears to the Foster project, I print out details to sketch over with one of our Principals, Daniel Vos. Right away it’s pen to paper! We talk through strategies as we draw, looking for new challenges as we solve old ones. It’s an enjoyable task to learn system limitations and simultaneously push them. One of the great things about Heintges is that all of my colleagues, no matter how senior, are enthusiastic to sketch through details together.

4:00pm: I circle back to glass selection research I’ve been doing with our in-house engineers, Kennedy Phillips and David Bott. Together we have been sizing the IGU build up based on the deflection and stress analysis. This analysis is paired with the project’s thermal and solar performance targets. With the build up and coatings in mind, I send off a handful of emails to glass manufacturers to request custom samples.

5:30pm: As the day is wrapping up I swing by Areta Pawlynsky’s office to ask if I can attend an upcoming factory visit. Always in support of gaining industry experience, she encouragingly agrees. She takes the time to ask how my workload is and if it needs to be adjusted in either direction. We swap updates on projects and I’m on my way.

6:00pm: I bike by the Hudson River as the evening sun is starting to set. I get home, walk the dog, and my partner and I make dinner together as we debrief about our days. Tonight it’s our easy go-to: a bibimbap with salmon and a sweet and spicy sauce. We’re both tired and will wind down catching up with friends, reading or watching a show (most recently, The Chair).

10:00pm: I hit the lights and fall asleep almost immediately.