LEED Gold-certified office building extends Amazon’s Seattle campus
Two solar control low emissivity (low-e) glass products from Vitro Architectural Glass make up the unitized and site-built curtain wall systems featured in Urban Union, a 268,000-square-foot, 12-story office building that is part of Amazon’s downtown Seattle headquarters expansion project.
Designed by CollinsWoerman, the structure is glazed with Solarban® z50 glass and Solarban® 72 on Starphire® glass and features ICD High Performance Coatings’ Telegrey Opaci-Coat-300® in all spandrel areas.
A “great room” at ground level is wrapped with a stunning two-story sculptural wood wall and an iconic glass blue cube that warms the entry, and a glass-enclosed conference center with an outdoor terrace at the rooftop offers breathtaking views of Lake Union and the city.
Vitro Certified™ fabricator Hartung Glass Industries, Seattle, fabricated the glass and worked with Vitro and glazing contractor All New Glass, Auburn, Washington, to coordinate deliveries of the two curtain wall systems. “Urban Union is a combination of unitized and site-built curtain wall systems,” said Garth Tait, Hartung sales and technical support. “We had two different delivery challenges with complicated releases on the transitions which needed some extra coordination with Vitro, internally and with All New Glass to marry everything together.”
Located in the bustling South Lake Union neighborhood that is home to many tech industry companies and their employees, Urban Union is fully leased to Amazon and expands the network of open space and pedestrian movement from the Amazon campus west. It can accommodate up to 1,400 employees.
In a standard 1-inch insulating glass unit (IGU), Solarban® 72 Starphire® glass has a solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) of 0.28, while Solarban® z50 glass has an SHGC of 0.32. The superb solar control performance of these products helped enable the building to earn LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification at the Gold level.
To learn more about Solarban® z50 glass and the rest of Vitro Glass’s full line of architectural glasses, visit www.vitroglazings.com or call 1-855-VTRO-GLS (887-6457).
About Vitro Architectural Glass
Vitro Architectural Glass, part of Vitro, S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV:VITROA), the largest company of its kind in the Americas, manufactures a range of industry-leading, energy-efficient products such as Solarban®, Sungate® and Starphire Ultra-Clear® glasses at U.S. plants in Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Fresno, California; Salem, Oregon; and Wichita Falls, Texas.
Committed to sustainable manufacturing processes and products, the company also operates one of the world’s largest glass research and development facilities in Pittsburgh and four residential glass fabrication plants in Canada.
Upholding the values of “Together, We See Further” across the architectural, automotive and containers markets, Vitro strives to realize the power of partnership to ensure that projects meet or exceed ever-evolving sustainability expectations as well as glass requirements. For more information, please visit www.VitroGlassHub.com.
Vitro Certified™ is a trademark and Solarban® and Starphire® are registered trademarks owned by Vitro.
LEED—an acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design™—is a registered trademark of the U.S. Green Building Council®.
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