Great Glazing: Henry M. Jackson Federal Building

The basics: The 1970s-era Henry M. Jackson Federal Building in Seattle underwent a major renovation in 2011 that included upgrading the building's monolithic glass to a more efficient and secure glazing system. The 35-story building features about 50,000 square feet of insulating glass units with low-emissivity glass and argon fill. Windows on the first 20 floors also feature blast-resistant glass, according to a release from the IGU fabricator, Hartung Glass Industries.

"The biggest challenge was coming up with a solution that met the multiple new design requirements," said Brian Norfolk, project manager for installer Walters & Wolf, in the release. "We were upgrading a ¼-inch monolithic-style window to an insulating glass system, which required a redesign of the stops while the frame remained the same and accomplished the bomb blast requirements."

The retrofit took place while the building was continuously occupied as a high security workplace, which restricted worker access as well as installation and delivery schedules. The installation team worked at night due to security reasons. Additionally, "there was no room for stocking in an occupied, high security building," Norfolk says. "Hartung ... would deliver several floors at a time, on time, which is what we were counting on."

The players: Architects, Bassetti Architects, John Graham & Co.; glass manufacturer, PPG Industries; IGU fabricator, Hartung Glass Industries; laminated glass fabricator, Lami Glass Products; glazing contractor, Walters & Wolf.

The glass and systems: The building features 3,500 insulating glass units. Floors 1 to 20 feature IGUs with a 6-millimeter lite of PPG Bronze Solarban 70XL with a solar-control low-E coating on the No. 2 surface, argon gas fill, and a lite of 6 mm anti-terrorism/force protection blast-resistant laminated glass with a 0.030-inch clear Saflex interlayer. Floors 21 to 35 feature 6 mm PPG Bronze Solarban 70XL with a solar-control low-E coating on the No. 2 surface, argon gas fill, and a lite of 6 mm clear glass.