Story

Taking pride in constructing the community, Grand Rapids Vos Glass, Inc, its native owners and local glaziers were honored to be entrusted with the “podium curtainwall” portion of the new Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital facility. The podium is a distinctly different and unique glazing design and system from the main tower. Its blue, green and silver glass and waves welcome those who drive by or visit the hospital. The podium, or base of the hospital, consists of a 600 lineal feet by up to 34 ft high glass and aluminum curtainwall stretching along both Michigan Avenue and Commerce Street. The curtainwall utilized was a custom Kawneer four-sided structural silicone glazed curtainwall system. One of many challenges on the project was the development and installation of the sloped glass system located at the corner of the building. It required the curtainwall “lean” into the building, resulting in complicated layout, fabrication and installation of custom trapezoid-shaped aluminum systems and insulating glass. Over 16,000 square feet of energy efficient reflective blue, green and metallic silver glass were installed. Helping with LEED certification and to assist in the environmentally friendly easy cleaning of the glass, the exterior insulating units were constructed with an outboard lite “Activ” self-cleaning glass by Pilkington a sophisticated coated glass product. This unique design required over 900 lites of glass, and not one of them were the same size or in alignment! Each unit of glass had to be “offset” from the next in order to follow the distinctive pattern of the aluminum panel “wave” flowing along the length of the building. A non-visible challenge was over 1,000 custom designed and fabricated brackets that mounted the aluminum panel “waves” to the curtainwall system. These brackets had to be attached before the glass installation. Brackets had to be precisely positioned by three dimensional scanning/high definition surveying to ensure the accurate alignment with the multiple layers of aluminum panel “waves”. Vos Glass, Inc. is proud to have been a part of this distinctive and extraordinary feature of the hospital. Its successful completion is a result of glazing craftsmanship along with the skilled coordination and planning efforts of the Wolverine Construction Management team and the expertise of GMB design professionals.