Are You Ready For Some Curtainwall?

First, let me just say that I am not a football fan. Yes, I’ll admit it: when watching the Super Bowl, I turn down the volume on the game and turn it up for halftime and commercials—if the game is turned on at all. But due to the fact that a new and significant person in my life lives, breathes and eats (almost) entirely for the Washington Redskins, I found myself in recent months putting down my book to high-five the aforementioned significant other when the team makes a touchdown, or gains yards or, occasionally, because the chili made for that week’s game was really, really good.

And, yes, I do have a maroon and gold tee-shirt that I have been required to wear for several games because the first time I wore it the ’Skins won (clearly, that tee has since been retired).

So as you can imagine, I held my breath when it slipped out over dinner one night that I was even considering profiling the new Dallas Cowboys football stadium due to its use of unitized curtainwall systems.

In a recent interview, Larry Long, president of Oldcastle Glass Engineered Walls in Dallas, told me that the company had supplied the curtainwall system for the new stadium.

“It’s all unitized—375,000 square feet of curtainwall,” Larry told me. “It’s just huge. It’s got 5,000 units on it.”

Oldcastle has been engineering the project for more than eight months now, and began shipping units in late December. Haley-Greer Inc., also of Dallas, is installing the glass for this project.

“It’s supposed to have the world’s largest retractable all-glass doors,” I related over dinner, trying to stress the unique use of glass and not my traitorous interest in the rival team’s project.

The boyfriend took this all relatively well. “Hm. Well. Are you writing anything about the Nationals’ new stadium? There’s supposed to be a lot of glass involved there.”

True, true. For now I’ll offer this link on the new baseball stadium in Washington, D.C., and its use of glass. But be prepared somewhere down the road for the sports issue of USGlass …

In the meantime, if you want to talk football, leave USGlass blogger Max Perilstein a comment here. If you want to talk about unitized curtainwall, send me an email at mheadley@glass.com!