Eight80 Atlantic Avenue

Standing as a testament to modern urban development, Eight80 Atlantic Avenue has underwent a significant transformation, developed as a 258-unit residential building and marking a milestone for Brooklyn’s urban landscape.

The building’s façade features a striking blend of elaborate brick masonry and expansive glass enclosures, creating a distinctive architectural design, envisioned by Issac & Stern Architects.

Following the successful completion of previous projects, IG Masonry Support was approached by JEM Contracting Corp. to supply a comprehensive package of stainless steel masonry support, construction accessories, and prefabricated brick slip systems to achieve complex brick detailing on the 19-story build.

The architectural vision for Eight80 Atlantic Avenue called for complex brickwork detailing, requiring close collaboration and careful design coordination across all masonry support and brick slip systems.

Sloped Brick Soffits
The ground floor on the front façade features sloped half-lap brick soffits above each opening, tapering at a 16-degree angle from top to bottom. The most technically demanding areas were the corner conditions at each opening, where the soffits sloped at differing angles to meet at a mitered corner junction – complexity further compounded by the intersection with the building’s structural piers.

Additional detailing challenges arose in the brickwork above the sloped soffits. A stretcher bond course was required immediately above the soffit, set back from the face of the building, followed by a half-lap soffit above that projected outward to realign with the plane of the splayed brickwork below. Managing this step sequence while maintaining coursing continuity and visual coherence across the façade required close coordination between the design intent and system detailing.

Intricate Brick Banding
Intricate brick banding was integral to the architectural vision at every level above the ground floor on the primary façade. The recessed intricate brick profile provides a clean but consistent break at each floor.

To maintain continuity and visual consistency with the ground floor detailing, each opening required a repeating sequence of masonry conditions spanning the full width of the building: a header bond soffit at the base of the assembly, a half-lap soldier brick veneer course
set back from the face of the building above, followed by a mirroring header bond soffit projecting outward to realign with the plane of the soffit below. IG’s solutions had to be straightforward to install, accommodate the set back and projecting brickwork and read as a seamless, unified assembly againstthe surrounding façade.

The design was further exposed by the need to coordinate around the building’s vertical structural piers, while simultaneously accommodating the alternating rhythm of window and balcony conditions across the façade.

In close partnership with Isaac & Stern Architects and JEM Contracting Corp, IG Masonry Support provided the technical expertise and system coordination needed to deliver the brickwork detail of the façade to achieve the architectural vision.

Sloped Brick Soffits
To achieve the sloped brick soffit detailing at ground floor level, IG Masonry Support combined its Welded Masonry Support (WMS) and B.O.S.S.® (Brick on Soffit System) solutions into a single, coordinated assembly.

The WMS units were engineered with a double-shelf configuration – an inverted bracket fixed to the slab edge to carry the upper-level brick veneer, with a standard bracket welded to the inverted bracket and dropped 1’- 1⁵/₈” to a secondary shelf to support the lower-level brickwork, allowing both levels of the sloped assembly to be carried from a single bracket and fixing.

The upper half-lap soffit was achieved using IG Masonry Support’s B.O.S.S.® units, which ran the full length of the façade and were bolted directly to the WMS. The inherent adjustability of the system allowed units to be finger-tightened during initial installation, with final alignment and torquing completed once all components were in position.

For the lower half-lap soffit directly above each opening, the stainless steel carrier on each B.O.S.S.® unit was manufactured to the 16-degree angle to accommodate the sloping geometry. Each brick was then bonded and mechanically fixed to achieve the bond profile, with bricks precision-cut by IG Masonry Support’s in-house brick cutting team to maintain coursing continuity at the soffit returns and to form the compound mitered corner junctions.

The adjustability of the B.O.S.S.® units was critical to the installation sequence – both upper and lower units were installed first, allowing the hand-laid brick veneer coursing between them to be set in place before final alignment and torquing were completed. Bricks were sourced directly from the live project site for use in the prefabricated B.O.S.S.® assemblies, with pointing completed on-site following installation to ensure a seamless finish consistent with the surrounding façade.

Intricate Brick Banding

For the intricate brick banding on the upper floors of the primary façade, inverted WMS systems were engineered to anchor directly back to Cast-in Anchor Channel Inserts within the building slab. A single B.O.S.S.® unit was then designed to achieve the full stepped brickwork profile. This took the form of a large B.O.S.S.® unit incorporating two channels in a c-shaped outward profile and discrete fixing points, bolting directly to the WMS system above. Each B.O.S.S.® unit spanned seven bricks in width, with unit sizing and configuration carefully considered against both installation sequencing and cumulative load requirements.

The building’s consistent design language allowed the B.O.S.S.® unit configuration to be replicated across multiple façade locations, significantly reducing design iterations and approval cycles while delivering measurable efficiencies during on-site installation.

Coordination around the building’s vertical piers, punched window openings, balcony windows, and balcony piers required the inverted WMS systems to vary in configuration across the width of the façade. However, because these conditions repeated consistently floor to floor, the same suite of system types could be carried vertically throughout the full height of the build – minimizing unique details and supporting a streamlined installation workflow.

The majority of construction works at Eight80 Atlantic Avenue were carried out over the winter months, bringing reduced on-site temperatures and tighter scheduling pressures that demanded a reliable, consistent approach to the masonry program.

The use of prefabricated solutions – all manufactured off-site under factory-controlled conditions and delivered ready to install and point – proved instrumental in achieving the complex brickwork detailing efficiently while keeping the build program on track. By removing the most intricate masonry work from the critical path and eliminating the weather dependency of traditional site-laid methods, the prefabricated approach allowed the team to maintain momentum through conditions that would otherwise have caused significant disruption.

Close collaboration between IG Masonry Support, Isaac & Stern Architects, and the JEM Contracting Corp site team was essential throughout the construction, helping achieve the full architectural vision and delivering critical savings in time and cost on-site.

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