Pieper O’Brien Herr Architects and Shimizu North America LLC completed the Sekisui Manufacturing facility under a design build approach. The new facility sits on a 23 acre site, and has 13,000 square feet of office space and 65,000 square feet of manufacturing space. The manufacturing process is almost entirely automated and amazingly, only 15 employees are needed in the manufacturing building to oversee the operations during a shift. It has a very distinctive Japanese linear design with very wide "eyebrow" overhangs and metal panel skin. The office features a suspended glass canopy at the entrance and houses 55 employees.
The plant manufactures glass tinting and safety films. They call this the S-LEC product, which is an interlayer film for laminated glass that shields not only UV radiation but also sound and heat. It is produced by combining resins, plasticizers, toners and other additives, which are stored on site in two large silos and a smaller dry storage building. They then send that mixture through an extrusion process then on to the winding room where it is rolled and packaged. The film is then stored in a refrigerated room until it is time for shipping.
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