Military Eyewear Manufacturing HQ Gets Contemporary Look

To say Galvion produces glasses would not do the company justice. Galvion “utilizes a robust design to deliver protective eyewear solutions that save lives” for use by the military and law enforcement.

“The goal was to ensure consistency with the branding of Galvion products,” says Mallory Mae Conway, Architect, Director for Jodoin, Lamarre, Pratte Architects in Montreal. “Galvion is focused on its eyewear line, so the insulated metal panels and aluminum composite material (ACM) helped us achieve a contemporary look; the panels are very smooth, as opposed to the rough finish of a concrete or stucco material.”

Conway says the front of the building contains a crease in the metal to represent the folded elements consistent with the company’s branding. “The availability of bright green and the grays for the metal panels allowed us to easily match the corporate colors,” she says. “You can’t do that with other materials.”

The Metl-Span insulated metal panels for the Galvion project were in two colors, Silver Metallic (14,767 sq. ft.) and Dark Gray Metallic (5,608 sq. ft.). Some were installed horizontally and some vertically. Metl-Span’s CF36 panels all featured a striated finish on the 22-gauge Galvalume exterior panels and a Light Mesa, Igloo White finish on the 26-gauge Galvalume interior panels. All IMPs had a 3-in. urethane core. Approximately 1,250 sq. ft. of ACM panels, manufactured by CEI Materials of Manchester, Mich., were used in two colors: bright green and charcoal gray.

Market Square Architects of Portsmouth served as the U.S. architect of record. Project architect Christina O’Brien was onsite for several meetings to ensure the design was carried out the way it was intended. “There were a lot of meetings, a lot of back and forth; it was one of those projects that required a lot of teamwork,” O’Brien says. “When it was coming together, we could see this was going to be a cool building. The Metl-Span panels were a great fit for color, and they helped us achieve the desired R-value of 20.5.”