Jim Pattison Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Building Technologies and Renewable Energy Conservation at Okanagan College, sportingSunGuard SuperNeutral 68. Photo: Ed White

Architectural glass is increasingly being cited in green building awards, which makes perfect sense. Glass is a ubiquitous building material found all over the world. Not all glass is made equal. Some is highly inefficient, while other glass sacrifices aesthetics for performance. The solution: Guardian Industries, a leading innovator and manufacturer of high-performance glass that some of the world’s best designers are using in their buildings. As the Greenbuild International Expo continues to attract attention this week, let’s take a look at these four Platinum LEED building projects that all use Guardian glass. Continue.

Designed by Vancouver-based CEI Architecture, the Jim Pattison Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Building Technologies and Renewable Energy Conservation at Okanagan College in British Columbia is a much-lauded example. Conceived as a training facility for the sustainable building professions, it was a 2012 Canadian Green Building award winner, described by the jury as “the best example of a well-integrated, passive design solution in which the architecture was not overburdened with technology.”

“Because the Centre of Excellence is a net-zero building, it was critical to select low-E glass that offers the maximum daylight penetration but controls solar heat gain,” explained Tim McLennan, MRAIC, partner at CEI Architecture. CEI Architecture selected Guardian SunGuard SuperNeutral 68, triple glazed for the project’s 20,000 square feet of exterior glass. The high performance characteristics of SunGuard SN68 contribute to the net-zero energy consumption of the building.

The Mercy Corps headquarters; Photo: Jeff Amram Photography

The Mercy Corps headquarters in Portland, Oregon, has been designated a 2012 Top Ten Green Project by the AIA’s Committee on the Environment in part thanks to its advanced, energy efficient curtain-wall system using Guardian’s SunGuard SuperNeutral 68.

The building achieved Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. The global relief organization took over an existing historic landmark for its new headquarters, and architectural firm THA Architecture designed the headquarters. The structure’s east façade curtain wall and a combination of new and kept windows give occupants outdoor views 95 percent of the time, and allow natural light to penetrate so that interior lighting can be off during daylight hours 39 percent of the time, according to the release.

The 125,000-square-foot, nine-story KONE Centre was designed by HOK as a “sustainable showcase.” Photo: Courtesy of Guardian Industries.

The KONE Centre has earned LEED Platinum certification, in part thanks to light harvesting technology. Photos: Courtesy Guardian Industries.

The 125,000-square-foot, nine-story KONE Centre on the Mississippi River in Moline, Illinois, was designed by HOK as a “sustainable showcase.” The mixed-use building is anchored by KONE Corporation, an international elevator and escalator manufacturer occupying three and one half floors. HOK selected Guardian SunGuard SNX 62/27, used on 50,000 sf of glass on the north, east and west facades, including 18-foot lites on the first floor. SNX 62/27 delivers 62 percent visible light transmission and a low, 0.27 solar heat gain coefficient for a LSG ratio of 2.30. The advanced performance of SNX 62/27 is due to the triple silver process, which applies three microscopic layers of silver in the coating. Part of Guardian’s advanced architectural glass SuperNeutral product series, this coating lets in lots of natural light but still blocks solar heat, saving on energy costs and helping projects qualify for LEED credits.

The Proximity Hotel

The saw-tooth roofline of the Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, North Carolina denotes the building’s fleet of solar panels, which set off almost 10% of the complex’s energy costs. The solar panels are just one of the complex’s integrated sustainable features, including embedded low-emitting and recycled materials, geothermal energy storage, and water-saving fixtures, that helped earn the project its LEED Platinum status. The use of SunGuard Super Neutral 68 for the building’s glazing maximizes light and views while retaining high levels of thermal efficiency, far exceeding the performance of traditional low E-glass. “It’s an urban legend that green is expensive”, says hotelier Dennis Quaintance, “the savings is in the operational costs”.

by Architizer Editors

posted in Uncategorized

tagged guardian, guardian sunguard, LEED, LEED Platinum

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