AMERICAN GLASS FABRICATOR VIRACON HELPS SET A RECORD HALF A WORLD AWAY
Owatonna, Minnesota, USA – November 2003 – Just last month, workers installed the 20-foot spire at the top of the Taipei Financial Center (Taipei 101), officially making it the tallest building in the world. Half a world away, employees of Viracon, the leader in glass fabrication, celebrated.
Viracon, headquartered in Owatonna, Minnesota, and with a second manufacturing facility in Statesboro, Georgia, was selected over three years ago to supply the specifically engineered glass products needed for the building’s exterior facade.
Standing at 1,676 feet, Taipei 101 was designed to resemble a bamboo stalk – reflecting the plant’s strength and vitality. It reaches up 101 stories and will be the new home of the Taiwan Stock exchange, private offices and a very large shopping mall. The curtainwall (which includes all of the exterior glass on a building) was designed by ALT Design, working under the direction of lead architectural firm C.Y. Lee and Associates. They, in turn, relied upon contractors Builders Federal and Josef Gartner to oversee the specification and installation of the exterior glass. Builders Federal turned to Viracon for the technical expertise they needed.
“Perhaps the greatest challenge on the project was fabricating glass units that would withstand the high wind conditions of a very tall building in a typhoon region,” said Viracon Senior Vice President Brad Austin. “We actually worked with the contractors for more than
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three years prior to being officially awarded the supply contract, and most of that time was spent providing engineered calculations that focused on the strength of the glass.”
The record-setting height of the Taipei Financial Center isn’t the only “big” thing about the building project. The panes of glass used in the building’s curtainwall are proportioned to the structure’s height, making them larger than standard commercial glass applications.
“The average commercial window fabricated in the Viracon facilities is 18 square feet,” explained Viracon Technical Director Rick Voelker. “A typical unit in the Taipei 101 project is 40 square feet. Since these are insulating glass units, they became extremely heavy.”
Because of the larger surface area, the glass also had to be thicker.
“A residential home normally has a single glass ply or two plies of glass approximately 1/8-inch thick,” Voelker continued. “The Taipei Financial Center windows required two plies of 3/8-inch thick glass with an airspace between them to meet wind load requirements. So each window is three to six times the thickness of the glass in a typical home.”
Although separated from the work site by over 7,000 miles, Viracon was the natural choice to fulfill the glass needs for the curtainwall of Taipei 101.
“This was a huge project, no question,” said Austin. “And the initial shipping schedule was pretty demanding. Viracon is one of just a few fabricators that could handle a project this size. Additionally, the spandrel areas of the building required a custom ceramic frit product to meet the distinctive design intent of the architect. We were able to meet all of their needs, including scale, speed, and specialty requests.”
Viracon is an international company of Apogee Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ: APOG). Viracon produces high-performance glass products, including tempered, laminated, insulating, and silk-screened glass, and high-performance coatings. Apogee Enterprises, Inc. is a leading fabricator, distributor, and installer of value-added glass products and systems.
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