Solarban® glass products by Vitro Glass featured in Urban Union
LEED® Gold-certified office building extends Amazon’s Seattle campus
Photography by Tom Kessler
PITTSBURGH, July 24, 2019 — 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® 60 Optiblue® glass (formerly 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 one-inch insulating glass unit (IGU), Solarban® 72 Starphire® glass has a solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) of 0.28, while Solarban® 60 Optiblue® 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® 60 Optiblue® 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).
Vitro Certified® is a trademark and Optiblue®,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®.
About Vitro Architectural Glass
Vitro Architectural Glass, part of Vitro, S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV: VITROA), is the largest glass producer in the Western Hemisphere, manufacturing a range of industry-leading, energy-efficient, high-performance products such as Solarban®, Sungate® and Starphire Ultra-Clear® glasses. Committed to continually raising the industry standard for sustainability, Vitro was the first U.S. glass manufacturer to have its complete collection of architectural glass products earn Cradle to Cradle Certified® status and the first North American manufacturer to publish third-party verified Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for flat glass and processed glass products. Additionally, as of April 2024, all Vitro architectural glass products meet the Top 20% Low Embodied Carbon (LEC) material Global Warming Potential (GWP) threshold the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) established pursuant to the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and related guidance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Vitro operates seven glass production facilities across North America, four residential glass fabrication plants in Canada and one of the world’s largest glass research and development facilities in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. For more information, please visit VitroGlazings.com.
Media Contact:
Robert J. Struble
Vitro Architectural Glass
412-820-8138
rstruble@vitro.com
www.vitroglazings.com