Alcoa Kawneer Products Help Put Innovative Colorado Courthouse on Track for LEED Gold Certification

NORCROSS, Ga.--（BUSINESS WIRE）--Alcoa （NYSE: AA） announced today that its Kawneer business has supplied architectural aluminum products that are integral to the new Lindsay-Flanigan Courthouse in Denver meeting Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design （LEED） requirements. Kawneer’s 1600 SS Unitwall? curtain wall helped the project with maximum daylight goals and several LEED requirements in the Materials & Recourses category. Kawneer also used recycled aluminum billet, which contributed to recycled content requirements. The new, five-story, 317,000-square-foot courthouse is on track for LEED Gold certification and also won the 2010 American Institute of Architects Denver Honor Award for design excellence.

Architectural firm klipp Architecture Planning Interiors selected Kawneer curtainwall for the East side of the building to represent the transparent nature of justice. To maintain the integrity of the design and the concept of transparency and light, the architect did not want to incorporate a steel support behind the wall, but rather have it appear to float. The complex wall design incorporates several setbacks, folds and slopes.

Working with the architect and Kawneer engineers, Denver-based glazer, Trainor Glass, created a 3D model of the wall to ensure that all components could fit together and be supported. “Because the design called for a curtain wall on a tilted plane, and to create the illusion of floating, it had to be top-hung from a secondary steel structure,” said Bill Trainor, project manager with Trainor Glass.

In addition to providing daylighting, Kawneer’s 1600 SS Unitwall? incorporates GLASSvents? throughout the judges’ chambers that integrated seamlessly with the building’s design.