COVER STORY
BY SHARON SULLIVAN
Clear Beyond Colorado Creating impossible art installations
I
magine watching active sea life through a crystal clear acrylic window while dining in the world’s
largest underwater restaurant. A Grand Junction company helped make that possible for a Norwegian establishment that opened in March 2019.
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COLOR ADO COUNTRY LIFE MARCH 2020
“Building the Impossible” is the motto at Reynolds Polymer Technology where engineers take ideas from clients worldwide and turn them into reality. Aquariums, high-end swimming pools and unique architectural features are among the many applications for the highly engineered acrylic panels crafted by Reynolds. A Reynolds Polymer team traveled to Norway to install the 36-foot panoramic acrylic window inside the restaurant’s concrete body, half-submerged 17 feet below the sea’s surface. The 13-foot tall acrylic piece was designed to withstand immense water pressure and harsh sea conditions. “It’s quite impressive, with a big window looking out to the North Atlantic Sea,” says Paul Gardner, Reynolds vice president of engineering. Additionally, Reynolds Polymer helped create the world’s largest indoor waterfall, which was completed last year at the Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore. Sunlight illuminates the waterfall during the day, and after dark a light and sound show is projected on the sheet of falling water. For that project, the company’s bonding manager, 52-year-old Victor Neil, spent a year and a half in Singapore where he led a crew from the Reynolds Thailand facility. “Anything too big to ship out of the shop we send in multiple pieces,” Neil explains.
