Rosen further explained that the design team liked the consistency of the stone. “What we really liked about it is that it has good consistency, but isn’t so consistent that it looks machine made or monolithic,” he said. “This building is in the Atlantic Station development, which gets a lot of pedestrian traffic. We needed a material that looks good from a distance and keeps the richness and darkness of the material. Up close, it is a very handsome stone. We recognized that there is a perfect balance of consistency from a distance and a textile look that we loved.”

In addition to the aesthetic characteristics of the Silver Pearl granite, the stone’s physical traits also had to be taken into consideration. “We were doing high-rise construction, so we also needed a material that has the strength to resist wind-loads,” said Rosen.

According to the architect, a construction executive and design executive represented AIG Global Real Estate during the selection process. “We had to make ourselves happy first before we could try to sell it to AIG and keep them happy about the final look,” said Rosen. “Also, we had to make sure that we chose materials that we could get quickly and ones that would work with other assemblies in the construction process.”

In total, the selection took roughly four to six weeks, according to Rosen. “ASI delivered about four to fives samples a week. It was a very thorough process,” he said. “It was time well spent.”

 A total of 100,000 square feet of Silver Pearl granite for use on the exterior of 271 17th Street. it took eight months to quarry and fabricate the stone for this project. On average, pieces measured 5 x 2 feet with a thickness of 2.5 cm.

Gupta explained that there were some challenges in fabricating the pieces, due to the natural variations found in the Silver Pearl granite. “Silver Pearl comes with variations — white spots and other differences,” he said. “We had to really select quite a bit of material to have continuity on the walls. With this size of panels, a lot of selection was done. The entire factory floor got covered with these panels everywhere. We were mostly color matching. Otherwise, the fabrication was relatively simple.”

The Silver Pearl granite pieces were glazed into a curtain wall system that also consisted of glass and aluminum.