Dominion Energy's Thomas F. Farrell II Building
Architect: Pickard Chilton
Installer: Ventana
Location: Richmond, Virginia
Completed: 2022
Certificate: LEED-NC Gold
Awards: 2022 American Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture
Innovation Glass was retained by Ventana Design-Build Systems to engineer and supply the custom 230’ x 50’ lobby wall including a large vestibule entrance. The facade design is comprised of horizontal 2” thick steel plates 12” deep spanning 30ft between 12” diameter round HSS columns. The curved geometry of the main facade was achieved by cutting the horizontal steel plate mullion into 5’ straight-line segments and a radius at its back/interior edge. The mullions are prevented from sagging by intermittent stainless steel tension rods which are suspended from the ceiling. Unique to this wall design is the use of only a single rod with typical horizontally spanning curtain walls requiring 2 rods in parallel. We achieved the single rod innovation by placing the rod at the centroid of the mullion and glass assembly so that the weight of the glass was balanced by the steel on either side of the rod centerline.
The tempered insulating glass clear spans 10’ vertically between the mullions to achieve an extraordinary level of structural transparency. The facade is face sealed with Dowsil 795 structural silicone to achieve a semi-rigid diaphragm in the surface of the glass to resolve in-plane forces to the foundation especially as related to the all glass corners.
The steel structure was fabricated and shop-prefinished to a Category 4 AESS level of quality, the highest in the industry. All welds were ground smooth and blended with adjacent surfaces to eliminate their presence visually. All connections were achieved with milled lap joints and out of site fasteners. One set of holes on one end of the horizontal mullions were slotted to allow for thermal expansion and building movements.
Celebrating the entrance is a “glass box” vestibule with “floating” interior portals that transfer the lateral loads of the doors to the roof and side wall glass panels. All metal in the vestibule and entrance facade area were fabricated from 316 stainless steel plate and polished to a pristine nr. 4 non-directional finish.
