Denver, Colorado (2/1/2002) --- George Shaeffer, the project director for The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts set out to develop a unique structure that would be a focal center for Philadelphia and would rival leading worldwide performing arts centers. Therefore, it is not surprising that the design and construction of this new facility in the center of downtown was extremely complicated. These complexities presented a number of challenges for the chosen roofing contractor, EDA Roofing Corporation of Philadelphia.
The $265 million Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts consists of two theatres enclosed in a glass structure. The ends of the walls on the vaulted glass ceiling are glass suspended on cables on a steel arch. This dynamic end wall is constantly moving. In high winds it can deviate as much as 18 inches.
The roof area consists of 40 different elevations with some on concrete deck, the other on metal. The entire roof area is 45,000 square feet with some sections being as large as 3,100 square feet and the smallest only 15 square feet. Because of the complexity of the job, limited accessibility and the inability to use either torches or asphalt, JM's UltraGard® EPDM fully adhered roofing membrane was selected for the project. The job required using both tapered and plain JM ISO 1™ insulation.
According to Harry Bolick, project Architect for Rafael Vinoly Architects PC of New York, "The building will be viewed from many adjacent buildings so we needed to create a tight roof with simple minimal elegant lines and still achieve a guarantee from the manufacturer. We decided on fully adhered EPDM because it seemed to be the most versatile for the number of conditions we had."
One issue that had to be addressed was the fact that the glass vaulted ceiling terminated at the roof surface. As a result, rainwater drains from the glass vaulted ceiling on the roof, which can turn to ice in the winter. This potential required putting pavers on the roof and walking pads under the pavers to act as splash guards.
"This project was like putting a puzzle together," said Ed D'Angelis, president of EDA Roofing. "The skylight comes down to the roof like a V and we had to design a flashing detail to go in and out of the Vs. The reason I decided to work with Johns Manville is because I needed the technical assistance they can provide. The Johns Manville representative, Dominic Salotto and Alan Siedel, the JM technical representative, both were excellent."
Bolick said that the technical support from Johns Manville gave him the confidence to challenge some standard detailing in order to still achieve a warranted roof. He thought it was very important to have the input from the Johns Manville team early in the project and throughout construction.
According to Bolick, the moving walls on either end of the structure also presented an interesting challenge. "To make an acceptable seal between the roof and the window wall, we had to make a union. This required close coordination between the window and roofing manufacturer for this detail to be successful. The jurisdiction of the two systems worked in unison to achieve a good seal in this dynamic situation," he said.
The roofing system had to connect to glass, brick, stone, efis and corrugated metal panels. In each case the goal was to have clean lines that are low profile. In order to get the proper weaving and counter flashing, EDA Roofing had to be very conscientious.
"It was very important for us to have autocad drawings to scale that we could look at throughout construction and EDA Roofing provided those for us," said Bolick. "Mark Nuzzi, the foreman for EDA Roofing was very knowledgeable and had a common sense logic and understanding of the architect's intention."
Coordination was also extremely important. Materials had to be loaded between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. because streets had to be closed. Materials had to be marked with a letter so that they could be delivered to the correct roofing areas. There were number of trades working at the same time. The roof was being installed at the same time as glass was being installed.
Safety was also a primary consideration and there was a full-time safety director. Because none of the parapets met OSHA height, the roofers had to be tied off or had cables to tie off. They wore a full body harness.
The general contractor on the project was was L.F. Driscoll of Bala Cynwyd, Pa. In addition to Harry Bolick, the architectural team consisted of John Kinnaird and Sandra McKee. Tom Callagan was the general superintendent for EDA Roofing Corp.
Johns Manville, a Berkshire Hathaway company, is a leading manufacturer and marketer of premium-quality building and specialty products. In business since 1858, the Denver-based company has sales in excess of $2 billion and holds leadership positions in all of the key markets that it serves. Johns Manville employs approximately 10,000 people and operates 55 manufacturing facilities in North America, Europe and China. Additional information can be found at
www.jm.com 
