SOLARBAN® glasses enhance sustainable design of award-winning John W. Olver Design Building

SOLARBAN® glasses enhance sustainable design of award-winning John W. Olver Design Building
Photo source
By Ngoc X Doan

Date: 22 January 2021

Vitro Glass products promote daylighting, energy performance for new design center at University of Massachusetts.

Racking up a long list of honors including a 2020 American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on the Environment (COTE®) Top Ten Award, a Wall Street Journal Best Architecture award and a World Architecture News Award for Sustainable Buildings, the John W. Olver Design Building consolidates three departments into one collaborative space at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

As part of the first and largest cross-laminated timber academic building in the U.S., Solarban® 60 and Solarban® 70 glasses by Vitro Architectural Glass raise the sustainable design bar for the LEED® Gold-certified facility, which encompasses 87,500 square feet of classroom, office and community space.

Local architects Leers Weinzapfel Associates (LWA) carefully considered the site, solar orientation and placement of an interior courtyard to maximize daylighting and reduce demand for artificial lighting. These tactics helped drop electrical load for the structure by 54% compared to an average university building.

Large expanses of triple-silver-coated Solarban® 70 glass, delivering visible light transmittance (VLT) of 64% in a clear 1-inch insulating glass unit (IGU), were specified on the south elevation. For the offices on the north-facing façade, tall, narrow IGUs fabricated with Solarban® 60 glass break up the anodized aluminum rainscreen system to deliver a high-performance envelope with an insulation value of R-31. A double-silver-coated low-e glass, Solarban® 60 glass contributes VLT of 70% and a solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) of 0.39.

A skylit central commons gathers students for socializing, lectures, exhibits and presentations, which ties together the departments of Architecture, Building Construction Technology and Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning. Studios, maker spaces and classrooms surround the central space, glazed with Solarban® 70 glass, which opens onto the street to showcase indoor activities and the structure’s relationship to the surrounding landscape.

“There’s a real integration of form and program,” said Tom Chung, FAIA, LWA principal. “The courtyard allowed us to bring daylight and views into the middle of the building, which is an amalgam of different types of program spaces.”

J.E. Berkowitz served as the glass fabricator for the award-winning design, which incorporates electrochromic glazing, occupancy sensors, automatic daylight dimming, operable windows, manual shades and a green roof.

For more information about Solarban® 60 and Solarban® 70 glasses and Vitro Glass’s full line of architectural glasses, visit www.vitroglazings.com or call 1-855-VTRO-GLS (887-6457).

600450 SOLARBAN® glasses enhance sustainable design of award-winning John W. Olver Design Building glassonweb.com

Others also read

Vitro Architectural Glass has added to its digital tool collection a new tool to help architects identify the best glass products to achieve their aesthetic and performance goals for their next project.
Guardian Glass and the VELUX Group have entered a joint development agreement concerning tempered vacuum insulated glass.
Pilkington Nederland BV has recently taken a significant step forward in quality assurance by incorporating the Sparklike Laser Portable™ into their production process.
POLFLAM is thrilled to announce the receipt of an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for its monolithic fire-resistant glass product range in fire resistance ratings EI and EW.
The agenda at glasstec 2024 features topics that keep the glass industry busy: Decarbonisation, Circular economy and Digital technologies. From 22 to 25 October these Hot Topics will be in focus.

Add new comment

From industry

2200 W. Salzburg Rd.
Auburn , MI 48611
United States

Via Del Lavoro Snc
64023 Mosciano Sant’Angelo TE
Italy