Campuses: Tech & Life Sciences
Curtain Wall & Glazing Case Study
Innovation. Inside & Out.
They’re the buildings that build our future. The campuses of icons like Apple, Microsoft, Genentech, Illumina, and more. Part office. Part R&D. They need to inspire outside and within, while being engineered to the unique technical needs of state-of-the-art industries and companies. Read below to see the engineering and design considerations that make these buildings special.
Clean As Can Be
Forget clean rooms. Some structures are clean buildings. At locations like the UC Santa Cruz Biomedical Sciences Facility, AGA took special precautions to maintain a sterile environment that protects delicate equipment and operations.
The Fruit of Our Labors
At Apple’s four buildings on Tantau Avenue, specifications called for half-ton, oversized laminated insulating glass units. To match the vision of Apple and the architects from Foster & Partners, AGA designed a custom aluminum window wall system that drastically minimized view of the window systems and maximized coverage of the glass.
Rounded Off
Curved glass integrated with curved aluminum is no easy feat. Neither is matching curved glass to flat glass. But the result is worth the effort, as seen in AGA's execution of the Illumina Campus at Lincoln Centre in Foster City.
Windows 2.0
The Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus was designed to compete for valuable resources (people), while minimizing impact on other valuable resources (water and energy). The finished campus received a 2021 COTE Top Ten Award from AIA for sustainable design and excellence. From the award submission: “A high-performing envelope improves comfort and reduces energy demand by 55%. Operable windows at the courtyards act as lungs for the neighborhoods, reducing mechanical ventilation demands by approximately 20%.” The campus also features outdoor meeting rooms in the courtyards with monitors built into the curtain wall for outside viewing — made possible with low reflectivity glass.
See the projects featuredin this case study:
- Offices
- Residential
- Institutional
- MOB & Hospitals
- Transportation
