THE BREATHABLE WALL
The Mirabel tower in Los Angeles will have a very unique façade with two departures from the normal curtainwall. The design concept for the tower requires a curvilinear floor plan. The design team decided to use flat segments of glass to facilitate the curve which created an overlap so that the outer glass on the overlap would shade the inside glass and therefore reduce solar load in the most direct manner. Because of the local conditions for the design to respond to the Art Deco heritage of this part of Los Angeles, the overlap is further coated with a frit diagonal pattern which also adds to the shade factor.
The second aspect of this unique design has to do with the operable ventilation. The City of Los Angeles no longer allows operable “hopper” windows at the bottom of a window light, which results in a wide aluminum frame where it affects the view. In that the whole reason for living in a tower is the view, the design team elected to put a rotating ventilator in the vertical mullion which is already extended to support both the inside and outside glass of the overlapping “fly by”.
A final added advantage to this set of details is that it creates a shadow pattern on the exterior wall which changes with the sun and eliminates the monolithic nature of a flat reflective glass curtainwall. The exhaust air system uses an in-slab duct that daylights in a continuous reveal in the spandrel.
