Article reprinted from WESTERN ROOFING magazine March/April 2008.

Visual Impact

Libeskind’s Museum Residences Project in Denver, Colo.

by Larry McLane, McLane & Company

The Museum Residences, part of an urban spatial composition anchored by the new Denver Art Museum expansion, are wrapped in transparent and opaque glass and accented with dramatic diagonal Rheinzink® panels. Designed by Studio Daniel Libeskind, New York, and Davis Partnership Architects, Denver, Colo., the $32 million, 126,000 sq. ft. project includes 55 luxury condominiums that offer “gallery-inspired living.”

The architects strategically sited the structure to reduce visual impact of the adjoining parking garage and clad its geometric forms in Rheinzink to echo the adjacent titanium-clad Denver Art Museum. More than 30,000 sq. ft. of Rheinzink 0.7mm/24 gauge pre-weathered blue gray flat lock tile was used to accent and highlight the seven-story structure.

The building massing is comprised of two rectilinear five-story glass volumes topped with sculpted, Rheinzink-clad two-story penthouses that are connected by a diagonal sloping form at the corner of the garage that interlocks with the glass volumes.

According to Davis Partnership project architect Joe Lear, “There was a hierarchy to the pieces in the overall project. The art museum was obviously first and foremost and you step back from there. For the residences, there was a conscious decision to use Rheinzink because it was a complement to the titanium used extensively on the Museum. The Rheinzink provided the right texture and color to complement and yet still be individual.”

Installation of the Rheinzink was done by A-1 Glass, Englewood, Colo. A-1 Glass also installed all of the curtainwall on the project. Dave Villella, project manager said, “We found that the most efficient way to do the job was to have the Rheinzink panels fabricated in standard 10’ lengths and then taken to the jobsite. The material is easy to work with so we made any necessary modifications on-site for our starter panels and then ran with it until we got to a corner or the top of the building. Since none of the panels were vertical or horizontal, the biggest challenge was handling the skewed angles for all of the starters and finishes.”

Another challenge, according to Villella, was created by Libeskind’s demand that the project be completely trimless with no flashings. “We couldn’t have exposed flashings so that created some issues at corners and returns,” reports Villella. “We sealed all transition points to meet his requirement. The cap flashing at the top was a hidden lock system so it wouldn’t come down over the face of the wall. And all of the corners were concealed behind the panel itself. We came up with a concealed flashing system that created a monolithic corner.”

The general contractor on the project was Milender White Construction Company, Golden, Colo. •••