Challenge:
Provide multiple tenants of a fourstory office building the opportunity to open up their individual interiors as well as shared spaces during the work day to take advantage of natural ventilation and surrounding scenic mountain views.
Solution:
A total of 16 creatively positioned Amarr® 3552 Heavy-Duty Aluminum Full View Sectional Doors (fifteen 8’ wide x 10’ high doors and one 24’ wide x 10’ high door) with ClearView aluminum struts and ½-inch clear tempered glass.
Results:
An innovative, functional and safe four-sided building design feature that allows a large volume of natural airflow, maximizes the use of natural daylighting and creates virtually unobstructed views of the surrounding cityscape and rugged scenery.
Facility:
The MOVE
Environment:
Multi-Tenant Office Building
Location:
Castle Rock, CO
Architect:
Barker Rinker Seacat Architecture – Denver, CO General
Contractor:
White Construction Group – Denver, CO
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The MOVE Office Building – Castle Rock, CO
When several locally-minded businesses in Castle Rock, Colo. decided it was time to find a new home, a bank-owned property in town looked like the perfect location. That is, except for one minor detail. There was no building on the property to even call home. At least not yet.
Because Castle Rock was experiencing a lack of appropriate office space, the vacant parking lot seemed like it was begging for an inviting multi-tenant office building. Budding local technology companies and other business had a need to readily “move” into a new home for more space and other benefits.
The result of this combined effort was The MOVE, an innovative multi-tenant office building completed mid-summer 2016. Conceived as a design-build project between White Construction Group, its business partners and Denver-based Barker Rinker Seacat Architecture, The MOVE now fills the gap between available small-scale office space and singlecompany office buildings in the Castle Rock area.
Project goal: maximize air ventilation and light
“We looked to Barker Rinker Seacat Architecture to develop an innovative industrial design approach that integrated full view sectional doors to bring in more ventilation and added light into our new building,” said Doug Decker, Vice President, White Construction Group (also a partner of The MOVE LLC, the office building owner).
The MOVE’s exterior façade is industrial in appearance, complete with corrugated metal exteriors—using both COR-TEN® and galvanized steel—exposed structural steel and ground faced concrete masonry. The corrugated galvanized exterior runs vertically and horizontally for dramatic visual interest.
Complementing its industrial façade, and one of The MOVE’s standout architectural features, are 16 creatively positioned Amarr® 3552 Heavy-Duty Aluminum Full View Sectional Doors. In fact, The MOVE represents one of the unique upper-story applications for Amarr anodized aluminum full-view sectional doors.
All but one of the full view doors are 8’ wide x 10’ high and appear as “punched” openings in each of the building’s four sides. The largest of the full view sectional doors is a 24’ wide x 10’ high door that is located on the side of The MOVE’s largest shared space that serves as a centralized eating and gathering area for the tenants and visitors.
“We looked to Barker Rinker Seacat Architecture to develop an innovative industrial design approach that integrated full view sectional doors to bring in more ventilation and added light into our new building.”
– Doug Decker, Vice President, White Construction Group (also a partner of The MOVE LLC, the office building owner), Castle Rock, Colorado
And when the sun goes down, The MOVE puts on an impressive light show. All of the full view doors are framed with changing LED lights that serve as part of the building’s nighttime accent lighting.
Perfect environment for opening up doors
The Castle Rock area has a semi-arid (or steppe) climate with minimal insects and plenty of sunny days each year. That provides the perfect environment for opening up a building like The MOVE during working hours, especially when daytime temperatures fall within a comfortable 65 to 80 degrees (typically May to October).
“We selectively positioned the full view sectional doors on the sides of The MOVE that had the best views,” said Melissa Ford, AIA, Associate, Design Manager, Barker Rinker Seacat Architecture. “The doors are spaced out to accommodate the multiple tenant suites on each floor, and priority placement accommodates community gathering areas, such as meeting and eating areas.”
Ford further explained that the glass in the doors was chosen to properly meet energy code requirements for The MOVE. She also pointed out that the doors’ heavy-duty struts will effectively resist powerful wind loads that are common in the downtown Castle Rock area and surrounding region.
The MOVE’s several common areas each feature a full view sectional door, the largest of which is the shared eating and gathering area on the second level (west elevation) where the 24’ full view door is located. As the only full view door out of 16 that’s motorized, it’s opened with the push of a button. The result is a very wide and expansive view of downtown Castle Rock and the surrounding Rocky Mountain scenery.
“We selectively positioned the full view sectional doors on the sides of The MOVE that had the best views.”
– Melissa Ford, AIA, Associate, Design Manager, Barker Rinker Seacat Architecture, Denver, Colorado
Smaller gathering areas, as well as conference rooms, feature the remaining 15 doors. When the doors are open, tenants can pull up a stool at a wood plank bar that spans the openings, or stand to take a break from work while eating and conversing with fellow co-workers and associates. The wood plank bars also serve as a convenient platform for laptops and other work-related items.
Each door opening features a safety barrier
For safety, each door opening has a mesh screen barrier built to code that extends from floor level behind each bar platform to a few inches above the bar. The safety screen’s extra height ensures that items on top of the bar (e.g. laptops, plates, coffee mugs, etc.) won’t accidentally slide forward, fall out the door opening and crash down on the sidewalks below. The bar and screen are also set back enough so that the full view sectional doors easily clear them when closing.
One of the design challenges that Barker Rinker Seacat Architecture worked through was the mix of acoustical drop and open structure ceilings used in The MOVE. As a result, all of the full view sectional doors use a low headroom (dual) track approach. The door’s top panel slides into the upper track while the panels below slide into the lower track which has a tighter radius.
Because the doors are located on upper stories, they don’t present any significant security concerns. For added security, though, each door is locked at night.
Lighting easily penetrates open doors
“A great advantage with the clear glass doors is that when they’re open, the lighting above is not blocked and easily shines through to keep the interior space properly illuminated,” Ford noted.
“We really like the Amarr doors because they're a heavy-duty, robust construction and are performing well as they’re opened and closed daily,” Decker emphasized. “They’ve also performed very well throughout part of the first summer sealing out the heat and through their first winter dealing with harsh weather conditions.”
Decker added the following common sense, yet sage advice, “Tenants really like to open up the doors early in the morning, even during warmer weather. They just need to remember to make sure the air conditioning is turned off, otherwise we’ll end up cooling all of Douglas County!”
“We really like the Amarr doors because they’re a heavy-duty, robust construction and are performing well as they’re opened and closed daily.”
– Doug Decker, Vice President, White Construction Group (also a partner of THE Move LLC, the office building owner), Castle Rock, Colorado
The MOVE project called for balancing larger anchor tenant spaces with smaller offices and co-working space resulting in what would become the newest and most unique office space in downtown Castle Rock. The MOVE has even encouraged local high tech and other businesses to stay in Castle Rock (part of the Front Range Urban Corridor), rather than relocate to Denver 28 miles to the north.
Decker explained that prior to starting The MOVE project, his firm visited several different office buildings that also had full view sectional doors to generate ideas for his own building. Located on The MOVE’s second floor, White Construction Group is the building’s anchor tenant. Additional tenants so far include a marketing group, food auditing firm and other executive suites. Currently, The MOVE has about 4,500 square feet of remaining leasable space out of 50,000 total square feet.
To learn more about how Entrematic works with architects, visit architects.amarr.com, which also includes information about Amarr’s commitment to sustainability, energy efficiency and ways to contribute LEED points to building projects. Please also visit Amarr Commercial Doors to obtain detailed information on Amarr Aluminum Full View Sectional Doors, or contact us at 800-503-DOOR (3667).
