YVR Arm Bracket

Custom-made for Vancouver International Airport.

YVR Arm Bracket

Project Challenge – Located above the first station of Vancouver’s Canada Line rapid transit system, the design vision was of a 115m long [375′] glass roof that curves like a wave to welcome visitors to the West Coast. While the first challenge was for the hardware to accommodate the facetted glass, the larger challenge was to find overall cost-efficiencies so this vision could be done within budget and not be value-engineered out. 

Creating overall project cost savings with a custom part became the mantra for this system design.

In collaboration with the architect, we designed the YVR Arm Bracket to have the following features:

• Clamp Connection – Cut labour costs by creating a bracket that clamped to the HSS structure versus a more traditional connection that would have required each bracket be drilled and tapped to HSS in numerous locations.
• Longer Arms – Extended the arms of our bracket to minimize glass deflection (the distance that a structural member (such as glass) displaces when under load). This is an important factor to consider in design to manage the stress in the glass. With the longer arms and reduced deflection, the glass specification was able to stay at a most cost-effective thickness of 12mm glass.
  
• Adjustable Arms – Wave shape of the roof created a complex structure with steel beams curving in two directions and flat glass needing to follow those curves. Our bracket’s arms could be set at different positions to accommodate the different angles of roof beams and glass.