In the heart of downtown Kalamazoo, Mich., is the newly constructed Kalamazoo Justice Center, which will bring together the county prosecutor’s office, circuit and district courtrooms, jury assembly rooms and the court clerk’s office. The $95 million project spans 165,000 square feet and is located next to the Kalamazoo County Administration Building on Kalamazoo Avenue.

The building features a large glass expanse on the south side of the building, a curtainwall that will provide optimum levels of daylight for the interior spaces. That same south-facing side of the building also includes a ground-floor pre-screening lobby. For the fascia of the one-story lobby space, the architects needed a product that visually extended the aesthetic of the modern glass curtainwall.

Aiming for Aesthetic Appeal

TowerPinkster was responsible for specifying finishes on the job in collaboration with the world-renowned architectural firm HOK.

“We needed a decorative product for the fascia on the one-story lobby that had the same look and feel as the glass curtainwall,” says Jennifer Swan, senior architectural project coordinator at TowerPinkster. “However, we didn’t want the fascia to feel like a framed curtainwall with hardware on the top, bottom and sides. The panels used were perfect since it is an insulated glass panel rainscreen system without visible hardware. It got us the exact look we wanted, and we were able to pick the color behind the glass to better match the building.”

The panels feature a super-resilient substrate to which back-painted and tempered glass panels are permanently bonded. Therefore, color will not wear, scratch, fade, or incur water damage, and designers can choose from 63 standard colors or custom colors if needed.

Visual Effect, Desirable Performance

“It literally looks like a piece of glass turning out of the curtainwall and running down the one-story portion of the building. It is a really cool visual effect,” says Swan.

In addition to aesthetics, the product is an integrated system that imparts strong weather-tightness, thermal performance, and fire protection. It incorporates noncombustible continuous exterior insulation and a continuous air and moisture barrier to produce an advanced, high-performance wall assembly.

“While it was primarily an aesthetic choice, the insulation of the system overlaps the interior envelope, which is nice for thermal performance and keeping the R-value,” Swan says. Moreover, the support from the manufacturer’s team helped with seamless installation.

“By choosing the systems, we had the manufacturer’s team to fall back on with questions, and they provided helpful shop drawings to work from, cutting down on issues and frustrations when installing,” says Bill Nagelhout, senior project manager with Sobie Company Inc., an installer on the job.

The rainscreen professionals provide a range of services to support all stakeholders in the construction process, ranging from design-assist to field support and more. For decades, this has proven invaluable to project teams using the specified products and systems.

Nagelhout reinforced the importance of having access to representatives throughout the project, because when small changes did arise, “the manufacturer’s team was there with support through it all.” The team at Architectural Glass & Metals—(one of the installers) had positive remarks about the systems, as well.

“The product is of very high quality, and the aesthetic is truly unique from that of a traditional aluminum composite material panel typically utilized for these types of applications,” said Jon Mutual, vice president of operations at Architectural Glass & Metals.

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