SOLARBAN 60 glass by Vitro Glass used in Vulcan Block 45

SOLARBAN 60 glass by Vitro Glass used in Vulcan Block 45
Photo source
By Tom Kessler

Date: 1 March 2019

Custom frit patterns give glass-and-aluminum look to Amazon building in Seattle.

An all-glass façade featuring Solarban® 60 solar control low-emissivity (low-e) glass by Vitro Architectural Glass that was custom-fabricated to match opaque metal panels is a major component of Vulcan Block 45, part of Amazon’s downtown Seattle headquarters expansion project.

Located in the South Lake Union neighborhood and designed by architecture firm NBBJ, the 13-story, 317,000-square-foot office building is clad with a metal panel and stone veneer finishes over prefabricated metal stud panels. Hartung Glass Industries, Seattle, a member of the Vitro Certified™ Network, fabricated monolithic glass cladding on the exterior, custom-matching the opaque solid frit print of the metal to conceal the hardware.

Garth Tait, Sales & Technical Support Specialist for Hartung Glass Industries, said that “from a distance, the building looks like it is finished with traditional glass-and-aluminum cladding, but it is really an all-glass façade.”

All New Glass of Auburn, Washington, was the glazing contractor.

With a solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) of 0.39, Solarban 60 glass blocks 66 percent of the total solar energy while allowing 70 percent of visible light to pass through. This combination produces an excellent light to solar gain (LSG) ratio of 1.79.

Vulcan Block 45 is the third Amazon building occupying three blocks of South Lake Union. The facility includes private and open offices, conference rooms and break areas, reception and interview rooms, training and usability labs, and a podcast room.

The building’s elongated shape allowed construction crews to use a pair of cranes for assembly, resulting in an average of one new floor built every two days—twice the pace of a single-crane approach.

To learn more about Solarban 60 glass and the rest of Vitro Glass’s full line of architectural glasses, visit www.vitroglazings.com.

SOLARBAN 60 glass by Vitro Glass used in Vulcan Block 45
Photography by Tom Kessler
600450 SOLARBAN 60 glass by Vitro Glass used in Vulcan Block 45 glassonweb.com

Others also read

FGIA will host two educational sessions during GlassBuild America: The Glass, Window & Door Expo, covering important and timely topics like the current state of supply chains and field testing for commercial fenestration systems.
Vitro Architectural Glass, the largest glass manufacturer in North America, has announced that longtime employee Logan Tautkus-Berry has been appointed to Senior Technical Service Representative/Sustainability.

Vitro introduces new resources on glass and embodied carbon, helping architects design greener, low-carbon projects.
SAINT-GOBAIN GLASS unveils its latest advancement in solar control: COOL-LITE® XTREME 51/23 and COOL-LITE® XTREME 51/23 II, the newest triple silver solar coated glass in annealed and to-be-tempered versions respectively.
Kuraray is set to host an exclusive, design-focused event series in South Africa, dedicated to the innovations behind its advanced laminated glass interlayers — Trosifol® and SentryGlas®.
The canyon-inspired tower in Denver’s RiNo District merges nature and architecture, featuring Vitro’s high-performance glass for beauty, comfort, and energy efficiency.

Add new comment

From industry

Polígono Industrial El Bayo, parcela I, 19
24492 Cubillos del Sil León
Spain

52 Corniche El-Nil, AL-SHARIFAIN Tower 10th Floor,
Maadi,
Cairo Governorate
11728
Egypt

Ottergemsesteenweg 707-Zuid
9000 Ghent
Belgium

NEWS RELATED PRODUCTS