Announcing New Engineered Glass Parking Facade System

Bendheim Glass Cladding System Wins Architectural Record’s Best Building Envelope Product Award

We are pleased to announce our first-ever exterior glass cladding system designed and engineered specifically for parking facade applications. The patent-pending system is flexible and fully customizable – to allow maximum natural light and ventilation, combined with virtually unlimited glass aesthetic options.

The ventilated parking facade system recently became Architectural Record’s Best Building Envelope Product of 2019. It impressed the independent jury of architects and designers with its ability to beautify parking structures, as well as its innovative design, eliminating the need for cumbersome holes drilled through the glass.

The award-winning, patent-pending parking facade system is unique in its use of smartly engineered, field-adjustable mechanical fittings to install monumental decorative glass skins. It securely attaches glass panels 30 sq. ft. or larger, weighing upwards of 300 lbs. each. Panels are hung independently of each other, speeding installation and ensuring easy and efficient long-term maintenance.

Detail view of system. Photo by Kelly Drake Photography.

Key to its ease of use, our Wall-PF1 parking facade system features generous built-in tolerances – up to 2” in all directions – to compensate for the typical unevenness in floor slabs and walls. The significant up-and-down, in-and-out, left-and-right adjustability allows facade fabrication to begin from the architectural drawings rather than precise field measurements, benefiting fast-track construction schedules.

Glass options are virtually limitless – from monolithic tempered pattern glass to digitally printed laminated glass – and are fully customizable to meet the project’s design objective, as well as impart a unique identity to the parking structure. As an added benefit, most of these decorative glass options are also bird-friendly, ideal for parking facilities located near green spaces or in the path of migratory birds.

727 West Madison / 1 South Halsted Parking Structure, Chicago, IL by FitzGerald Associates. Photo by Tashio Martinez.

The system’s first real-world application was the new 727 West Madison / 1 South Halstead parking structure in Chicago, IL by FitzGerald Associates Architects, installed by Reflection Window + Wall (pictured here). The objective was to design a jewel-like parking facade on a strict budget. Our solution features two distinct wall aesthetics – a flush panel layout with pattern-fritted glass on the west facade, and an open, staggered panel layout with translucent white glass on the north and south facades. A case study outlining the design details and execution is available here.

Bendheim’s technical design team is available to assist building and design professionals with system specification, customization, design and engineering, and detail drawings.