FACADES 17
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
BRIDGESTONE AMERICAS CENTER FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY
This year, Nashville-based Bridgestone Americas celebrated the opening of its new 265,000-square-foot technical center in Akron, Ohio. Designed by Ohio-based SoL Harris/Day Architecture, the facility is one of the company’s three technical centers worldwide; the others are in Rome and Tokyo. The project houses a research laboratory that the tire maker uses to test new tire compounds, as well as prototype and quality-control engineering offices and additional office space for almost 450 employees. A pedestrian bridge with custom ceramic-frit glass spans Akron’s South Main Street to connect to a new 400-car parking structure on the nearly 25-acre campus. Built to LEED Gold specifications, the technical center does not rely on just one enclosure system to function efficiently. Instead, it incorporates a range of efficiency-enhancing products from Bridgestone’s Firestone Building Products division, including the S-4500 Aluminum Panel Rainscreen System, Flat-Lock Stainless Steel Wall Panels, UC-600 Aluminum Exposed Fastener Panels, UC 500 Aluminum Soffit Panels, S-200 Aluminum Column Covers, Aluminum Sun Screens, and LS-1 Light Shelves. Using the company’s suite of products also helped the project stay on a tight schedule—from its February 2010 groundbreaking to its official opening in April 2012. In addition to the light shelves and screens, reflective roofing and a vegetative roof reduce the building’s cooling requirements, while an on-site cistern collects water for irrigation. A high-performance, tripleglazed facade system uses United Architectural Metals UAM 275-925 TRIPLE, a thermally broken unitized curtain wall system designed to accommodate Viracon's 1-3/4-inch triple-glazed units across 50,000 square feet of curtain wall.
COURTESY BRIDGESTONE AMERICAS
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