There is no doubt that Kawneer wants to play an important role in building the greenest buildings in his forest.

This Atlanta suburban aluminum building product manufacturer strives to distinguish its storefront frames, entrances, special windows, and bread and butter curtain walls as sustainable. The company's 11 products have obtained the Declare label, and all products do not contain toxic red-listed chemicals. Photovoltaic is even integrated into a curtain wall in Conil.

Moreover, in 2016, as the design of Kenda's innovative sustainable design building began, engineers at the company's headquarters in Norcross, Georgia, have developed their most energy-efficient curtain wall to date, the 1600UT system.

Curtain walls are multi-layer non-structural facade systems, most commonly used in commercial buildings. The material filling the curtain wall frame is usually glass, and the frame itself or mullion is usually made of extruded aluminum. Usually, everything except the filling material is provided as a system by the manufacturer (such as Kawneer). The glass manufacturer provides the glass to be inserted; and all components are assembled on site by a separate contractor (in the case of the Kenda building, the subcontractor is CrownCorr.)

Not surprisingly, Kawneer has a keen interest in this eye-catching dark green project of Georgia Institute of Technology. Jenelle Sams was the company’s sustainability expert at the time, and she became a frequent visitor to design team meetings open to the public-partly to better understand how to best adapt products and systems to living architectural challenges, and partly to adapt the project The architect keeps the company's name in mind.

"We are trying to complete this work as early as possible," said Donnie Hunter, Director of Global Product Management at Kawneer. "This is a famous school. It's a conspicuous building. It's in our backyard. We want to be the leader of our industry in our transparency and environmental efforts."

Since they mainly consist of glass and hollow metal frames, curtain walls are usually the weak link in the thermal insulation surrounding the energy-efficient building. This means there is still a lot of room for improvement. But Hunter emphasized that the curtain wall system continuously developed by Kawneer meets increasingly challenging sustainability standards, making the 1600UT system one step closer-UT stands for "super heat"-relatively easy.

"We just added the insulation that already exists," Hunter said. Hunter said that small changes in the standard configuration of the product will increase the calorific value by 6% to 8% without changing the overall outline of the installation. More importantly, the 1600UT mullion can provide spacing for triple-glazed windows; this can increase the thermal performance of the entire window by a bigger factor.

Kawneer easily customizes its system to meet the strict specifications of the Living Architecture Challenge, which demonstrates that Kawneer has a head start by focusing on sustainability. Hunter acknowledged that increasingly stringent regulatory requirements have prompted Kawneer and its competitors to improve their thermal performance, and he expects this trend to continue to drive higher thermal performance. At the same time, he hopes that investments in areas such as recycling and non-toxic materials will establish the company's position as a sustainable market leader.

As Hunter said: "This transparent, environmentally healthy direction-from the perspective of product management [and] product design, it has become part of our DNA."

Manufacturer: Kawneer is headquartered in Norcross, Georgia, and is part of Arconic Inc.'s building and construction systems division, which is headquartered in New York and specializes in light metals. Kawneer produces a wide range of architectural aluminum construction products in five plants in North America.

Products used in Jiantian Building: 1600UT system curtain wall

Working principle: The curtain wall mullion is mainly made of hollow aluminum. By increasing the thickness of the synthetic polyamide material in the mullion, the 1600UT system improves its thermal performance by 6-8%. The overall size of the 1600UT system is no different from that of the more commonly used 1600 wall-mounted system.

It is worth noting that the 1600UT system may be the future curtain wall of Conil. Donnie Hunter, Director of Global Product Management at Kawneer, predicts that code improvements will continue to require thermal performance improvements.

Certification: Compliance Declaration Label, Global Reporting Initiative Sustainability Report, LBC Red List, UL Environmental Product Declaration and Well.

Corporate sustainability and responsibility: According to CSRHub data, Arconic, the parent company, ranks higher than 61% of global listed companies in terms of various sustainability and responsibility indicators.

Top photo: Working on an elevator outside the building, CrownCorr's installers put the finishing touches on the Kawneer curtain wall of the Kendeda building. Photo by Ken Edelstein.

The Kenda Foundation and Georgia Institute of Technology collaborated to create the most environmentally friendly university building in the south. We hope it can model the transformative construction technology of the entire region.

Read the ongoing story of our ambitious project.

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