Griesenbeck Architectural Products worked alongside multiple entities to complete a project at The Ion in Houston, Texas.
Rice Management Company had an ambitious goal of transforming the historic Midtown Sears Building into a show-stopping innovation hub that would serve as the heart of Houston’s new Innovation District – a place for startups and industry titans alike to meet and share ideas.
In 2018, Gensler – the project architect – called Griesenbeck for assistance with the design. The design vision included creating a breathtaking five-story lightwell at the center of the building but achieving the open space design while simultaneously satisfying Houston’s fire and life safety code requirements proved challenging for the 266,000 square-foot multi-use space.
After bringing experts from McKEON and the City of Houston together with stakeholders, it was decided that two McKEON H200 Series bi-parting horizontal steel shutters would meet both the design vision and code requirements. Our automatic closing fire shutters prevent the migration of heat, smoke or hot/toxic gases by creating vertical compartments thereby separating the vertical spaces from one another.
The two bi-parting horizontal steel shutters installed measured 127′ 8″ L x 19′ 8″ W and 110′ 11″ L x 26′ 8″ W (tip to tip) and weighed a grand total of 72,000 lbs. The shutters carry a UL 10B rating of 2 hours and operate during power loss. Using these shutters prevented the need to use fire barriers on multiple floors while allowing natural daylight from the skylight at the top of the lightwell to reach all five floors. Griesenbeck’s installation of these large bi-parting horizontal McKEON fire shutters within the lightwell saved the owner over $1 million.
Griesenbeck received a national Excellence in Construction® Eagle Award for their work on The Ion. The EIC awards were presented to 82 of the nation’s top construction projects in 2022 and are the construction industry’s leading national competition that honors general and specialty contractors for world-class, safe and innovative construction projects from across the country.
“Our team put forth tremendous effort to give life to The Ion. Installing McKEON fire doors secured Rice’s vision for The Ion to be an open, collaborative space that would put Houston on the map for technological innovation. We are proud to have been a part of this landmark project for our hometown. And to say we are proud of our team for their accomplishments – especially given this is a back-to-back national Excellence in Construction win for us– is an understatement,” said Griesenbeck President Tanner Spears.