Value Plastics
Loveland, Colo.
Best Project
Owner Nordson Medical
Lead Design Powers Brown Architecture
Associate Architect Clark & Post Architects Inc.
Building Envelope Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates Inc.
Civil Engineer R&R Engineers-Surveyors Inc.
Structural Engineer Peak Engineering
MEP Engineer BCER Engineering Inc.
Acoustical Design Shen Milsom & Wilke LLC
Landscape Consultant Ripley Design Inc.
Concrete Tilt Subcontractor Encon Division of StressCon
General Contractor Confidential
Value Plastics is a single-story, 115,000-sq-ft medical-injection molding manufacturing and office facility. It produces more than 4,000 plastic medical tubing components while operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The high-tech medical industry employer provides many high-paying jobs for the surrounding community.
The project created full clean-room molding, assembly and packaging systems and inventory storage capabilities while achieving a significant reduction in energy use and maintenance costs. It also provides Value Plastics with easily configurable spaces for its quickly changing business needs.
The team built enclosed corridors, called service spines, within the clean room to service many current and future configurations of mold-making machines; utilities were kept within the service spines as much as possible for easy cleanup. The building is situated to take maximum advantage of potential energy savings. A butterfly roof with clerestory windows over the dining area provides an abundance of daylight.
The foundation system consists of spread and pad footings, exterior Thermomass tilt-up concrete walls and a roof structure that features metal-bar joists with a 1.5-in. metal deck and white TPO roof membrane. State-of-the-art manufacturing components and natural design elements are incorporated throughout the building. Board-formed concrete takes its cues from the natural surroundings, while full-height glass in the east and west elevations floods the interior with daylight and capitalizes on the mountain views.
The Thermomass exterior, the first one in Colorado, is a concrete-insulation system used in precast, tilt-up and cast-in-place applications. An insulated sandwich panel system is layered with a structural wythe, insulation and a face wythe. The system provides Value Plastics with a highly energy-efficient building with no visible insulation or paneling in the interior manufacturing space.
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