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No longer a second-rate substitute for quality materials, a new generation of plastics is emerging as the building material of choice for many architects and designers.

By Barbara Knecht

The data center at YouBet.com is enclosed by curved acrylic panels fastened to the stud wall with hat channel clips (below). Workstations (right) are enclosed with single sheets of heated and bent acrylic. YouBet.com San Fernando Valley, Calif. Architect: Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects (Lorcan O’Herlihy, principal), Pugh + Scarpa Architects (Larry Scarpa, principal) Plastics suppliers: Hastings Plastics (workstations); Fisher Lumber (curved wall); Crommie Construction (contractor)

Receptive manufacturers and fabricators to work with can help designers achieve inventive solutions. Lorcan O’Herlihy, a Los Angeles–based architect, has had success working with a local supplier on several projects. For the offices of YouBet.com (realized in collaboration with Larry Scarpa of Pugh + Scarpa Architects), they used acrylic sheets curved to form workstations and separately to form a wall around the data center.

Reinforcing the words of Dan Rockhill, O’Herlihy said, “We like to use this material because it is more malleable than glass; you can put it in an oven and heat it and bend it. The suppliers and manufacturers give us the basic capabilities of the materials and then we work to try to push the limits—for example, increasing the radius of the bend.”

“The suppliers are getting more excited about nonconventional, architectural applications [because they mean new markets], but on-site installation is still labor-intensive. Contractors haven’t necessarily worked with these materials, and some of them require more care than conventional wall materials,” continued O’Herlihy. At YouBet.com in the San Fernando Valley, a single 1¼4-inch-thick sheet of acrylic is bent with a 2-inch radius at the corners and screwed into a custom-fabricated steel frame for the workstations. A middle-range opacity provides sufficient privacy while enhancing the transfer of light throughout the space. By contrast, the freestanding data center walls are composed of 12-inch-high curved sections of acrylic sheets that run horizontally. Off-the-shelf hat channel clips attach the sheets to the stud wall, which is lit from within the lowest panel. The overall light quality in the translucent panels can be very even and energy saving, because more daylight is transmitted between and among the spaces.

Experimentation with new materials can be time consuming, often requiring testing and prototype production to uncover a material’s full potential. IBM asked George Yu and his partner Jason King, principles of Design Office in Los Angeles, to renovate 40,000 square feet on two floors in the IBM building in Chicago for their E-business Center for Innovation. Completed in 1971 and designed with C.F. Murphy, the building is Mies van der Rohe’s largest and last building in North America. Design Office, working in collaboration with media design firm Imaginary Forces, wanted to amplify the building’s openness and ethereal boundaries in the renovation. Collaboration and experimentation with various plastics manufacturers led them to select a fiberglass resin for a retractable coat closet and a reception-desk enclosure, an acrylic terrazzo for the floors, and a solid surface material for an interactive conference table.