Post Time:Mar 29,2012Classify:Industry NewsView:389
A 12-story apartment building in New York has become the world’s first large residential project to use Cabot Corporation’s
The New York apartment building, known locally as TEN23, has 111 units and is located next to Highline Park at 500 West 23rd Street. The new building, which opened in January, was designed by Gerner Kronick + Valcarcel, Architects PC. The owners of TEN23 told the architects they wanted to design apartments that were filled with natural daylight, and common terraces filled with trees and lawns, to help create a home that reflects the harmony of the countryside with the excitement of the city. To help achieve this goal, Gerner Kronick + Valcarcel, Architects PC chose Advanced Glazings, Ltd., to daylight the building. Advanced Glazings partnered with Cabot to develop a unique solution. The system created by Advanced Glazings Ltd. uses a combination of glass fiber veils that act as a controlled light diffuser, patented InsolCore™ insulation to eliminate air convection, and Lumira aerogel (formerly called Nanogel® aerogel) to create a daylighting system with the same insulation value as that of a solid wall. Due to the size of the apartments, it was vital to provide as much valuable daylight as possible. In order to do this while still complying with the strict New York building regulations for energy efficiency and sound insulation, the architects used Solera R18 glass units with Lumira aerogel to increase the overall insulation value of the project. Consequently, the building was designed so that 34 percent of all the windows are Solera glass units, which offers a glass insulation resistance value of R-18 and a sound insulation that exceeds outdoor-indoor transmission class (OITC) 36 using a standard construction of 6mm annealed. In comparison to a typical double glazed window that offers a resistance value of R-3 to R-4 and an OITC in the low 20s, these results are unprecedented in a glass window of 6mm. “We were excited to have an opportunity to showcase Solera glass units with Lumira aerogel in TEN23,” said Avi Bar, vice president of Advanced Glazings, Ltd. “Our patented method to stabilize aerogel in our InsolCore™ insulation, meant that architects finally had a robust solution that allowed for controlled daylighting with unmatched durability and thermal efficiency.” The remaining windows were triple glazed. The combination of Lumira™ aerogel and triple glazed windows ensured that the apartments could have floor to ceiling windows admitting the maximum amount of light while offering superior energy efficiency, excellent sound insulation and building code compliance. “Using Solera R18 units with Lumira aerogel was a very important component of the project,” said project architect Michael Fontaine of Gerner Kronick + Valcarcel, Architects PC. “The panels have excellent insulation value which enabled us to design very large windows. In addition, the windows diffuse the natural daylight eliminating hot spots and glare and filling the apartments with soft museum quality light. We were also able to exploit the translucent appearance of the Lumira aerogel to enhance the exterior design of the building by contrasting clean hi-tech glass sheets against a playful pattern of decagons formed in the adjacent concrete panels.” In order to meet building code, the south facade of TEN23 required a fire-resistant construction. Rather than build that facade with brick or concrete infill, the architects installed insulated, opaque glass panels with fire-rated systems behind to maintain the scale and pattern of the facade. Where permitted, the architects designed a number of panels with translucent and clear glass to provide privacy and light.
Source: www.marketwatch.comAuthor: shangyi