Glacier Case Studies

Mission Possible: Partnering to Bring Daring Architecture to Life

Sat, 05 Feb 2022 22:32:21 GMT

Blackcomb Façade Technology and Glacier Window & Door Partner to Create Great Façade System, Curtain Wall Architecture

Whistler, British Columbia, under the twin shadows of Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains , is where you’ll find Blackcomb Façade Technology busy creating extraordinary façade systems (including curtain walls, skylights, windows and entry systems) that turn the once impossible into the now possible. Given that the Blackcomb Glacier is one of the most celebrated runs on Blackcomb Mountain, it seems inevitable that Blackcomb Façade Technology and Glacier Window and Door of Seattle, WA, should combine strengths to provide innovative fenestration and facade solutions for high-end houses together. From the start, it looks to be a great run.

Blackcomb Façade Technology…

A team of engineers, designers, and construction pros self-described as “construction nerds,” Blackcomb sees themselves as the architect’s partner – their job is to help make architects and builders shine. They live and breathe design details, love the challenges of sophisticated architectural visions, and provide the best value when they join the team early in the design-assist stage. Yes, they do design and construct innovative, often daring fenestration for mainly residential buildings, but that’s a bit like saying that a gourmet chef cooks good food.

Blackcomb designs and engineers extraordinary façade solutions that integrate completely into the aesthetics and structural integrity of the building, using the most innovative technology and techniques available. The result is spectacular, architecturally driven curtain walls with minimal obstructions that are both aesthetically pleasing and integral to the structure of the building, becoming part of the water management, wind and lateral loading and seismic integrity. Blackcomb performs this feat with both residential buildings plus unique and challenging smaller commercial projects.

In short, they take architects’ dreams and make them real. And they have fun doing it. Blackcomb’s motto? Fun work with fun people.

…Meet Glacier Window and Door

Glacier Window and Door is an architectural design-driven supplier and installer of high-quality, state-of-the-art fenestration systems for luxury homes. Like Blackcomb, the Glacier team integrates early on with architects and builders to ensure that the entry systems and all doors and windows meet the owners’ and architects’ aesthetic goals as well as the structural needs of the building. Just as fenestration is integral to the building, the Glacier team is integral to the smooth, timely completion of complex design-build projects.

The Glacier team has a deceptively simple goal that’s easy to say, difficult to do. They shepherd through complex window and door selection, customization, and installation projects from start to completion in sync with other construction efforts and on budget. And they make that experience pleasant for the owner, architect and builder.

Glacier works with the finest manufacturers of windows; wood clad, aluminum, and steel windows, as well as top of the line door and entry system manufacturers. As architects migrated giant window walls – also known as façade systems – from the commercial to the residential world, Glacier has worked with several manufacturers, including Loewen, Brombal, and Fleetwood. Now they are teaming up with Blackcomb, the premier fabricator in the Pacific Northwest of custom façade systems.

And Raico Makes Three

Blackcomb Façade Technology and Glacier Window and Door make an ideal fabrication/installation team. But it takes one more partner to make the magic work. RAICO Bautechnik GmbH is the world leader in the design of extrusions, profiles, pressure plates and gaskets in the world – all the hardware that makes stunning façades and curtain walls possible. Working in the commercial building realm they are the acknowledged specialist for sophisticated building envelopes – just as Blackcomb is the North American specialist for residential façade systems.

Blackcomb partners with Raico exclusively, believing that their high performance, highly insulated facade system technology is a generation ahead of North America. While Raico is generally associated with commercial buildings, their partnership with Blackcomb makes the same customizable scope of curtain walls available for high end residential buildings.

All three companies are experts in working with design build teams to provide highly detailed, bespoke façade solutions, making the triumvirate the perfect synthesis of skills to service architects and builders who are working at the cutting edge of architecture.

What You Don’t See Is What You Get

The breathtaking effect of large façade curtain walls is created by the immediacy of the connection between the interior and exterior of the building. Viewed from the street, expansive glass facades are dazzling, with an air of the impossible about them. The person inside the building feels as though they are directly connected with the outside world – while they remain warm, or cool, and sheltered. In short, it’s the view – transparency – that creates the wow.

Blackcomb is dedicated to creating exquisitely engineered facade systems with minimal site lines. Traditionally, when many windows were combined, the vulnerable junctures were protected against wind and moisture by widening the mullions; while strength and shielding were increased, aesthetics – and the view – suffered. In Blackcomb’s façade systems mullion dimensions grow deeper as size and exposure requirements increase, not wider. Their two-inch wide mullions provide aesthetically pleasing divides while achieving the requisite protective and structural attributes.

Actively Involved in Passive House Design

Combining expansive glass walls with the super energy efficiency of modern buildings – including passive house standards – is a balancing act solved by technology and engineering.

RAICO was the first German façade system house to have their curtainwall system certified by the Passive House Institute (PHI) in 1999. Blackcomb shares their dedication, taking advantage of Raico’s suite of PHI certified systems, which enables Blackcomb to create highly efficient designs for complex projects, including triple-glazed curtainwalls, skylights, and window & door elements. The technology of Raico married to the fabrications skills of Blackcomb and the installation expertise of Glacier Window and Door allow architects to incorporate glass curtain walls into their designs while maintaining energy efficiency.

Turning Impossible Into Possible

Blackcomb’s goal is to achieve anything the architect can draw. Confronted with a demanding, unprecedented design the Blackcomb engineers are likely to look over the plans and say, “It seems feasible – let’s see how we can do it.” The definition of impossible is something that can’t be done within the limits of the one attempting to do it. Blackcomb is constantly pushing those limits back; they thrive on projects that other fabricators deem impossible, constantly challenging their team to devise solutions to bring audacious designs to life. This is another reason why Blackcomb works best as an architectural partner, offering technical advice and suggesting achievable means early on in the design assist stage.

So is there a limit to what can be achieved? Yes, the largest size of a single pane of glass that can currently be manufactured.

Right now, the upper limit is around 3.5 X 20 meters, or 11.5 X 65 feet.

Collaboration Is the Key

Blackcomb Facade Technology’s team of engineers, designers, construction experts and focused thinkers view each project as a challenge to solve engineering problems specific to each job’s unique circumstances, including client preferences, architectural specs, and geographic environment.

The team of installers at Glacier Window brings a similar attitude and dedication to each project. To them, highly complex projects are a matter of interlocking details that need to be broken down, examined and solved in concert with the architect and builders in order to ensure a smooth construction process.

The technological excellence of Raico. The fabrication brilliance of Blackcomb. The installation expertise of Glacier Window and Door. All are needed to achieve the once impossible. Perhaps the most important element each team brings, however, is their collaborative nature, the

enthusiasm they share for being a part of the greater team committed to achieving a highly successful project – and spectacular architecture.

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Clear Thinking About Window and Door Systems in Your Luxury Home

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 17:32:08 GMT

Windows and Doors are Integral to Your Home Design

You’ve just put a great deal of thought, time, effort, emotion and money into the perfect architectural design for your new-build or remodeled luxury home. You’ve decided on the particular wood, brick, stone, tile and other materials that achieve the perfect balance between the feel you want and the performance you need. As for the windows… At last, an easy choice! After all, they’re just glass in a frame. They need to match your style and fit your custom openings. You can decide on them later.

We suggest a more clear-eyed approach. That can save you trouble and money in the short run.

There is a great deal more to windows than meets the eye. Windows and doors are integral to your design goals, not accessories, so there are very good reasons to consider all aspects of your fenestration early in your planning and design process. Windows and doors for luxury homes – whether new builds, remodels, or retro-fit or replacement – are our specialty. So we’d like to lend you the benefit of our expertise and make the process of selecting exactly the right doors, windows, and installation teams for your project as transparent as possible.

It will take about half an hour to read this blog. But it may save you months of time, costly construction slowdowns, and not a little regret. And it will help you make choices that will delight you for years to come.

Not only are windows one of the biggest single expenses of any building project, they are one of the most crucial for the look and appeal of your home as well as, importantly, its performance. So while all windows provide light and views, and all doors provide access, there are many factors to take into account, including look and style, quality level, performance specifications, cladding materials, and functionality. Installation is critical as well. Your builder or remodeler may be able to install simpler windows. Other, more complex windows, require the expertise of specialized installation teams.

A Large Selection of Luxury Window and Door Products Plus Detailed Knowledge Equals the Right Choice

Your windows and doors should seamlessly blend with, accentuate, and enhance your design. You may need a classical or contemporary look carried out in a variety of materials to complement the design of your new or remodeled home. Architectural visions can vary widely, so you’ll need a breadth of choices, plus a team with encyclopedic knowledge of high end windows and doors and a working familiarity with the vernacular of design and the exigencies of construction, to discover the perfect palette of possibilities.

Glacier Window & Door provides an eclectic line of high quality windows and doors in a variety of styles and materials for your architecturally driven luxury home. Period. We have vetted more companies and lines than most vendors carry, and we have curated the best. Simply put, we don’t have “good” and “better” products here; only best in class. We are the exclusive PNW dealer for handcrafted, wood and wood-clad, Loewen windows and doors in Oregon, and we are proud to say, we are extending that reach into Washington. We also purvey and install Air Lux, Brombal, Blackcomb, Centor, Fleetwood, Glo, Maiden, TruStile and Sky Frame.

Our fenestration solutions, exterior and interior doors, and entry systems represent the state of the art in fine woods, aluminum, stainless steel and façade systems, combining functionality, precision fit, aesthetics, and durability for the discerning designers of luxury homes. Many of the manufacturers that we represent are innovative leaders in the design of creative processes that extend the performance and durability of their products.

Your Glacier representative brings a thorough knowledge of our extensive lines of premium windows and doors to help you sort through optimal choices and arrive at the best solution for your custom project.

Windows and Doors Do the Heavy Work as Well as the Light

How much light is too little? How much is too much? It all depends on what you’re trying to achieve. Visible light transmittance (VLT) is the measure of the amount and spectrum of visible light that glass allows to pass through. In cooler, northern climates a greater VLT may be desirable; in warmer climates that may contribute too much solar gain. In such a case, you may want to use spectrally selective glass that blocks infrared light while still allowing high levels of visible light.

VLT is just one measure of performance that should be taken into account when figuring the overall contribution of windows and doors to the comfort and efficiency of a home. Your Glacier representative will also help you consider the U value energy efficiency – which measures the ability of a window or door to transmit heat – the solar heat gain coefficient, air infiltration rating, and overall performance grade.

What is the optimal level for each of these? It depends on personal taste, the goals of your project, and budget. Most homes now seek high energy efficiency, and we can help select the best grade of products to achieve that. Others strive to go beyond those goals, to create passive houses that must meet air tightness standards, heating and cooling energy demands, and overall energy consumption goals to be certified. Net Zero houses must create as much energy as they consume. While most of this energy is created by solar panels, the correct windows and doors contribute greatly to reducing energy consumption, an essential component of achieving the net zero certification.

You can spend days researching the technical performance and efficiency ratings of a large array of windows and door systems. Save some personal energy! The more efficient way is to rely on the long experience and working knowledge of the Glacier team.

Choose a High Performance Team for High Performance Windows and Doors

Time was a door was just something to open and close, and a window was something to look through. Today’s fenestration and portal products have become increasingly complex to handle the combined demands of aesthetics, function, and efficiency.

Glacier provides a number of simpler door and window products that can be installed by your construction team, or an outside installation crew that we can recommend based on long experience. This includes turnkey solutions for retrofits or older window replacements.

For our more complex systems, we firmly believe that the purveyor should also install the doors and windows. After all, who understands them better? We sell precise products, such as multi-slide pocket doors, retracting screens, motorized door systems and complex entry systems. All of these products have been custom built for you. Their installation needs to be equally precise or their functionality suffers.

The average builder or installer has little to no experience with such systems. Mistakes may lead to construction slowdowns – which often translate into cost overruns – and frustration all around. Components can even be damaged. Builders commonly complain about the finger pointing that goes on in the door and window trade, with manufacturers blaming installers for failures and installers turning round and accusing manufacturers. That sort of disruptive behavior has no place in a finely orchestrated construction process where each sub-team needs to get its work done correctly and on time.

Glacier maintains very close relationships with our manufacturers, and our installation team is highly trained on all the products that we sell. Technical installations are our specialty. If there is a flaw in the product, we’ll know it early on, and work with the manufacturer to replace or fix it. In the event that something goes amiss during installation, the responsibility to quickly make good squarely falls on us, without hesitation. For the customer that means one point of communication, and one point of responsibility. We believe that the process should be as satisfying as the result.

Transparency, Trust, and Teamwork

Luxury homes are created at the confluence of excellence in materials and craftsmanship. Every component, and every team, counts towards the final result. Because window and door systems are integral to the design, function and efficiency of the building, consultation with an expert should take place at the beginning of the design process. As well, custom fenestration and door systems will require custom manufacturing, which takes time. Since a smooth construction process depends on the interlocking efforts of specialized teams, issues of availability and manufacturing times need to be addressed early on.

Luxury homes are made of steel, wood, stone, concrete and glass; a compendium of premium materials. But the invisible component that makes the flawless creation of luxury possible is relationship. Relationship between fenestration and portal experts and the manufacturers they work with. Relationship between specialists and the architect or designer and building contractor. And, most important, the relationship with the customer.

At Glacier, we understand that a good relationship is built on solid communication, timely execution, superbly installed products, transparency throughout the process, and respect. From working with the customer and designer to preview and pick products, to arriving at the house for investigations and measurements, to coordinating our expert installation crews, we are here to help meet the desires of the customer, never to pressure.

While it is beautiful in itself, the ultimate task of a window is to frame the passage of light in the most pleasing and unobtrusive manner possible. Likewise, your window and door team should be the transparent medium that brings the right mix of products and knowledge, experience and skills to facilitate the perfect execution of your design driven luxury home.