SOLARBAN 60 glass by Vitro Glass used in Vulcan Block 45

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.