Major Panes

by Jonathan McGaha | 31 May 2016 12:00 am

Glistening gem-like façade of geometric panes generates a great graphic

 

The Ryerson University new Student Learning Center (SLC) in Toronto was designed to offer students a home away from home, complemented by an exquisite design. Tall and visually striking, Ryerson’s Student Learning Center projects an edgy but confident look. Snøhetter of Oslo, Norway, and New York City, designed the SLC in tandem with Zeidler Partnership Architects of Toronto. With its glistening gem-like façade, the Ryerson University SLC is eight stories tall and more than 155,430 square feet. Situated in the busy heart of historic Toronto, the LEED-certified Silver building provides Ryerson students with everything they need to excel in the 21st century.

 

Triple-Glazed Glass Panes

The $112 million student center opened to students and the public in February 2015. The building’s exterior features a complex system of triple-glazed glass panes revealing a graphic across the surface. The glazing aims to control solar heat and glare while adding interest to the natural interior lighting. From the outside, these patterns create a dynamic sheen that enhances the building’s gem-like appearance.

To accomplish the geometrical appearance, architects enlisted Mississauga, Ontario, Canadabased Flynn Canada to assist in the installation. Flynn Canada completed the total building envelope, unitized glazing, metal panels, and sofffit and dome ceiling, as a subcontractor to Mississauga, Ontario, Canada-based construction manager EllisDon. Flynn received the 2015 Ontario Glass & Metal Association award by its industry peers for Excellence in Architectural Glass & Metal Execution for the Ryerson project.

“The initial intent for the glazing frit pattern was that it was to be unique to each glass panel,” says Michael Roche, manager of technical sales North America at Flynn Group of Cos., Mississauga. “This proved to be costly as a print screen would have to be produced for each glass panel pushing the project way over budget. We came up with a proposal that was semi-repetitive, and in addition, adopted the new technology of digital printing available from one of our glass suppliers; this was accepted giving a huge saving for the project and the end result a testament to that process.”

Flynn Canada called upon Chesapeake, Va.- based Mitsubishi Plastics Composites America Inc. to provide its ALPOLIC metal composite material panels to keep the structure intact. A simple approach to a complex project, the Flynn Canada team experimented with bending the ALPOLIC panels to achieve the desired aesthetic: and it worked. “Composite had never occurred to us at all because the shape was so complex,” says Dan Delaney, engineering and business development manager at Flynn Canada. “But with a little ingenuity and an origami-like approach to bending the panels, ALPOLIC material proved to be far easier to fabricate, more practical to install and considerably more affordable than any other solution.”

The next challenge was to bring to reality the iridescent appearance the architects had in mind. Mocking up a variety of samples, architects chose Minneapolis-based Valspar’s Valfon coating in Prismatic Blue, which added to the dimensionality of the intricate exterior and provided an illuminating shine.

Flynn Group engaged laser scanning of the finished structure very early on. “By incorporating our scan data into the BIM model we predetermined where our unitized elements needed to be in relation to structure and utilized the same info right through the procurement and manufacturing process,” Roche says.

 

A Continuous Look

The finish of Valspar’s Valflon Prismatic Blue on the metal panels evokes a molecular crystalline lattice as it might appear under a powerful microscope. The Prismatic Blue soffit extends into the SLC’s interior lobby and provides a continuous look. Valspar’s Valflon is a fluropolymer (FEVE) resin-based coating well suited for high-traffic spaces. Valspar also offers high-gloss, vivid colors, exemplified in the depth of color and sheen in Ryerson’s blue exterior. The high-gloss coating gives the building and its edgy entrance a pearlescent finish that shimmers and reflects different shades of color depending on how the sunlight hits. Roche recommends visiting the center to appreciate “the slick details and transitions from glazing, to metal panel, to structure.”

 

Sidebar: Student Learning Center, Ryerson University, Toronto

Owner: Ryerson University Architect: Snøhetta, Oslo, Norway, and New York City; and Zeidler Partnership Architects, Toronto
Construction manager: EllisDon Corp., Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Fabricator/installer, snd soffit and dome ceiling: Flynn Canada, Mississauga, www.flynncompanies.com[1]
Coatings: The Valspar Corp., Minneapolis, www.valsparinspireme.com[2]
Metal wall panels: ALPOLIC-Mitsubishi Plastics Composites America Inc., Chesapeake, Va., www.alpolic-americas.com[3]
[4]

Source URL: https://www.metalconstructionnews.com/articles/major-panes/

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