February 14, 2003—Specialty glazing contractor Harmon, Inc., engineered, manufactured, and installed a custom curtainwall system on Bullis School’s new Blair Family Center for the Arts in Maryland.
Harmon’s Baltimore team and general contractor Whiting-Turner enhanced architect Einhorn Yaffee Prescott’s design, while helping save nearly 40 percent on the school’s initial purchase of mechanical equipment, plus the added long-term savings over the school’s lifecycle.
Initial architectural concepts for the school featured high transparency and a glass faade on the southwest side of the building that envelops the performance center atrium. These designs would be communicated with clear, LowE glass, and an aluminum sunscreen was suggested for improving the shading coefficient.
Harmon recognized that, due to the orientation, the sunshade would not provide enough shading coefficient to manage the air conditioning loads. Harmon value-engineered the system using its SMU6000 curtainwall with Viracon’s VT1-20 titanium reflective glass.
This dramatically reduced the demand on the school’s HVAC loads, according to Harmon. While the glass slightly reduced the transparency, its blue cast accented the horizontal expression of the building intended by the architect’s design. Due to the improved efficiency, Harmon was also able to eliminate the sunscreen and reduce the number of framing members in the curtainwall.
For more information contact Harmon, or call 763/287-4900.
