Viracon Awarded Glass Supply Contract for Freedom Tower in NYC

The World Trade Center Tower One, also known as the Freedom Tower, is being developed by the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey and will be constructed on the site of the World Trade Center buildings destroyed by terrorists in 2001.



"This is an extremely proud day for all of Viracon's 2,600 employees," said Brad J. Austin, Viracon's Senior Vice President. Over the past four years, Viracon has assisted New York architects at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) to provide the best possible glass solution to achieve the aesthetic design, energy and security performance required for the project. The Freedom Tower is the first of four buildings to be constructed at the site.



At 1,776 feet tall, a tribute to our country's freedom with the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Freedom Tower will be the tallest building in North America when complete.



Viracon, the largest single source glass fabricator in the country, was selected based on the company's ability to achieve stringent design and performance criteria for glass. "The architects at SOM relied on Viracon to provide a glass product that marries form and function together to achieve the design intent of the project with highly functional glass performance in terms of energy efficiency, security and safety," says Austin.



SOM's design for the Freedom Tower requires extremely long pieces of glass that are highly transparent and, at the same time, provide superior energy efficiency and security. Viracon installed custom fabrication equipment to meet the needs of the project. "To create the feeling of openness, the architects challenged us to fabricate exceptionally large-sized insulating glass units, which are well above the industry standard," says Rick Voelker, Vice President of Technical Services at Viracon. "The glass sizes to be used are approximately two feet longer than typical fabrication limits." Viracon made significant investments into equipment and material processing in order to accommodate the increased sizes. Viracon is the only U.S. fabricator with the ability to work with such large sizes for energy efficient coated insulating glass.

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