Project: Southbridge Middle-High School
Location: Southbridge, Mass.
Architect: Tappé Associates
Glazing Contractor: Lockheed Window Corp.
Product: SteelBuilt Curtainwall Infinity™ System from Technical Glass Products
When land and budgets are tight, building a new school is often out of the question, no matter how outdated the existing facility. Fortunately, district officials for Mary E. Wells Junior High School and Southbridge High School in Southbridge, Mass., found another solution. To preserve real estate and provide students with accommodations fit for the 21st century, they hired Tappé Associates to design a facility that would hold students from both schools. The result is the new Southbridge Middle-High School.
In the new facility, the middle school and high school classroom wings flank either side of the auditorium and media center. A sleek, glass-and-steel curtain wall joins them together, creating an efficient, shared space that bears little resemblance to the school’s dilapidated predecessors.
To ensure the right gateway between the two school campuses, one consideration during the design phase was selecting a glass façade that connects students to each other and the outdoors while also meeting thermal performance requirements. The design team found their solution with the SteelBuilt Curtainwall Infinity™ System from Technical Glass Products (TGP).
The steel curtain wall system is approximately three times stronger than traditional aluminum curtain wall assemblies and can use as a back mullion nearly any type of structural member, from stainless steel to glulam beams. This enables greater free spans, larger areas of glass and reduced frame dimensions.
In the case of Southbridge Middle-High School, the SteelBuilt Curtainwall Infinity horizontal and vertical back members were combined with large panes of heat-mirror glass to create a 27 foot-tall expanse that provides students with ample daylight and visibility to the outdoors. The curtain wall’s narrow T-profiles accentuate the school’s open, minimalist look. A custom connection and anchoring system furthers this design aesthetic with unique countersunk fasteners that eliminate field welds in the vision area.
Steel frames help improve thermal performance
As a barrier to the elements, the SteelBuilt Curtainwall Infinity System also does more than bridge the two campuses. The 1½-inch heat-mirror glass and efficient steel frames help improve thermal performance. Specifically, the heat-mirror glass secures a thin, transparent low-e film between two sheets of glass. Compared to a conventional 1-inch, two-lite insulated glass unit, it provides improved thermal performance, allowing for a reduction in the steel framing size. This helps reduce the pathway for heat transfer, creating an overall system U-value of 0.26.
Today, the sleek, high-performing curtain wall system helps create a welcoming entrance full of daylight and movement for students and faculty. “We worked hand-in-hand with Southbridge officials to find a design and a solution that best meets the district’s educational needs,” said State Treasurer Steven Grossman, in a Massachusetts School Building Authority news release. “The construction of this new middle/high school will provide more than 1,000 students with a new, top-notch learning environment.”
For more information on SteelBuilt Curtainwall Infinity products, along with TGP’s other specialty architectural glass and framing, visit tgpamerica.com.
Technical Glass Products
800.426.0279
800.451.9857 – fax
sales@tgpamerica.com
www.tgpamerica.com
Related Stories
| Jan 12, 2015
23 projects win AIA's highest architecture award
Bjarke Ingels' Danish Maritime Museum and William Rawn's Cambridge Public Library are among the winning projects.
| Jan 9, 2015
Santiago Calatrava talks with BBC about St. Nicholas Church on Ground Zero
Calatrava reveals that he wanted to retain the “tiny home” feel of the original church building that was destroyed with the twin towers on 9/11.
| Jan 9, 2015
Nonresidential construction hiring surges in December 2014
The U.S. construction industry added 48,000 jobs in December, including 22,800 jobs in nonresidential construction, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary estimate released Jan. 9.
| Jan 9, 2015
10 surprising lessons Perkins+Will has learned about workplace projects
P+W's Janice Barnes shares some of most unexpected lessons from her firm's work on office design projects, including the importance of post-occupancy evaluations and having a cohesive transition strategy for workers.
| Jan 9, 2015
Technology and media tenants, not financial companies, fill up One World Trade Center
The financial sector has almost no presence in the new tower, with creative and media companies, such as magazine publisher Conde Nast, dominating the vast majority of leased space.
| Jan 8, 2015
Microsoft shutters classic clipart gallery: Reaction from a graphic designer
Microsoft shut down its tried-and-true clipart gallery, ridding the world not only of a trope of graphic design, but a nostalgic piece of digital design history, writes HDR's Dylan Coonrad.
| Jan 8, 2015
The future of alternative work spaces: open-access markets, co-working, and in-between spaces
During the past five years, people have begun to actively seek out third places not just to get a day’s work done, but to develop businesses of a new kind and establish themselves as part of a real-time conversation of diverse entrepreneurs, writes Gensler's Shawn Gehle.
Smart Buildings | Jan 7, 2015
NIBS report: Small commercial buildings offer huge energy efficiency retrofit opportunities
The report identifies several barriers to investment in such retrofits, such as the costs and complexity associated with relatively small loan sizes, and issues many small-building owners have in understanding and trusting predicted retrofit outcomes.
| Jan 7, 2015
University of Chicago releases proposed sites for Obama library bid
There are two proposed sites for the plan, both owned by the Chicago Park District in Chicago’s South Side, near the university’s campus in Hyde Park, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
| Jan 7, 2015
4 audacious projects that could transform Houston
Converting the Astrodome to an urban farm and public park is one of the proposals on the table in Houston, according to news site Houston CultureMap.
