EDUCATION/MUSEUMS

Beloit College teamed up with Studio Gang to turn an old coal power plant into a buzzing hot spot for students to get together, stay healthy, and have fun. The Powerhouse is right by the Rock River and close to campus. The project preserved some historic elements of the Blackhawk Generating Station while adding new eco-friendly aspects. A large Schweiss bifold lift strap door opens the indoor/outdoor recreation gym, allowing for ample fresh air and sealing lock-tight when closed. The Schweiss hangar-style bifold door is one of many sustainable energy features on the campus.

The Powerhouse is a huge space with a 10,000-square-foot place to work out and a 17,000-square-foot gym. There's also a track with three lanes, a pool with eight lanes for races, and lots of spaces to hang out, talk, work together, or study; plus, there's a coffee shop, places for students to relax, rooms for clubs, a big meeting area, and even a hall for lectures or shows.

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Bifold Doors

Row, row, row your boat, all the way to Hamilton College's new Boathouse located on the Erie Canal in Rome's Bellamy Harbor Park. The one-story, rectangular wood-framed structure with a footprint of approximately 3,600 square feet was equipped with a 28' x 11' Schweiss Bifold Door. The nationally recognized rowing team now has a place they can truly call home.

The superstructure is supported by glue-laminated wood frames with a wood roof deck and wood-framed shear walls. The new storage facility includes an area for boat and oar storage, office, bathrooms, tool storage, meeting room, and an operations area.

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Bifold Doors

The Health & Sciences Innovation Building, designed by CO Architects, contains 9 stories with a variety of purposes for each floor. The ground floor, known as the forum, features a stage area with tiered seating.

On the front side of the forum stand three glass hydraulic Schweiss Doors which make up one full wall. The large 26' wide by 17' tall hydraulic window/walls can be opened to the courtyard beyond, creating an expanded indoor/outdoor space which provides an atmosphere of inclusiveness and encourages engagement, interaction and fosters connections.

Architectural Design: CO Architects
Photography: Timmerman Photography Inc.

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Hydraulic Doors

As part of its recent Master Plan Update, Metropolitan Community College (MCC) in Omaha, Nebraska strategically created three buildings as centers of specialization.

It's 65,000 sq. ft. Central Main Building included the incorporation of two Schweiss bifold doors. The larger 18.4' wide x 26.5' tall designer door was clad in glass. The smaller 15.6' wide x 18.3' tall door was clad in fiber cement panels. Both doors were powder coated and have electric photo eye sensors, door base safety edges, warning lights and horns, gray liftstraps and emergency back-up systems in case of a power outage.

The larger door is used to bring in equipment and the smaller door gives access to classrooms and opens to a transitional room housing utility components.
Photo by Nick Merrick © Hall+Merrick

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Metro Community College

When it came down to ordering a door for their new hangar at Ross Shaw Sterling Aviation High School in Houston, Texas, Schweiss Doors was chosen to provide a bifold liftstrap door for their new school.

There aren't many high schools in the U.S. that offer this type of education to the extent that they do to continue on to give students a chance to get flight certified.

Their new hangar is set up to hold the two aircraft. The bifold liftstrap, aluminum frame door is 49' 6" x 20' 2". The door has galvanized windrails and siderails, a keyed switch entry system, electric photo eye sensors and is windrated for 120 mph. Two rows of windows - 12 total, on each half of the door let in an ample amount of available daylight into the hangar.

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Sterling Aviation HS

SCI-Arc in Los Angeles, California, is a non-profit school offering undergraduates and graduate degrees in architecture. SCI-Arc's approximately 500 students and 80 faculty members work together to explore and test the limits of architecture. The school is based in the former Santa Fe Freight Depot in the Arts District in downtown Los Angeles.

The building design included two Schweiss bifold/liftstrap glass designer doors. The doors are 19' 1" x 9' wide and 16' 1" x 8.6' wide. Each door is equipped with autolatches and electric photo eye sensors. One of the glass doors is at the entrance connecting to the new building and the existing shop. Directly over the top of that door they used the second bifold door as a skylight that can be opened up for natural light and occasional ventilation purposes. Special engineering was required in order to have the pitch of the door at a greater slope of 1/2" per foot to match the roof line.

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So Cal Institute of Architecture

Founded on the campus of Stanford University in 2002, the Carnegie Institution's Global Ecology Center was created to study the interaction between the earth's various ecosystems.

Given the department's nature-intensive mission, the presence of three bifold doors at the Center's perimeter seems appropriate. In the closed position, these 9'-tall glass doors - two of which are 14' wide while the other is slightly larger - bring natural light into nearby interior work spaces. And when opened, they literally connect the indoors and out, thus bringing researchers a little closer to the work they've dedicated themselves to. The doors were manufactured by Schweiss Doors of Fairfax, MN, and installed by Rudolph & Sletten Contractors of Foster City, CA.

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Bifold Doors

Supplying doors for military bases is nothing new for Schweiss Doors, they've been doing it for years. Although Canadian Forces Base, Borden didn't have a need for specialty blast-proof doors like other military establishments, a recent building expansion project for its Ontario training school called for the use of Schweiss hydraulic and bifold liftstrap doors.

The seven-door order of Schweiss hydraulic and bifold doors was for a new 16,000 sq. ft. Mechanical Engineering and Training Building at the base, which has a tank display school for training mechanical and electrical engineers.

They chose four identical 18' 10" x 14' 5" bifold liftstrap doors and three hydraulic doors; one of which was 18' 3" wide by 8' tall and two that were 17' 11" wide by 8' 3" tall. The bifold doors are clad with glass and equipped with automatic latches, emergency backup-hand crank, remote openers, weatherproof electrical and door base safety edges.

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Armed Forces School

The Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame opened its doors with a grand red carpet reception attended by throngs of inductees and sports fans in 2013. The beautiful 27,500 square foot museum is located downtown in the Historic District of Natchitoches.

Two Schweiss custom-made aluminum-framed one piece hydraulic doors, each measuring 15' wide x 11' tall, were made especially for this project. The architects called for a custom fabricated flat hinge design with pleated copper panels that control light. This was in order for the doors to blend into the wall, making it look like there actually wasn't a door there when in the closed position. The exterior doors are opened to bring exhibits in and out of the museum. An emergency battery system was also added to the order in case there would be a power outage.

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LA. Sports Hall of Fame

Among the glass walls that comprise the perimeter of Kenyon College's $80 million Center For Fitness, Recreation and Athletics is a 25'-wide by 14'-tall glass bifold door, manufactured by Schweiss Doors of Fairfax, MN, and installed by ASI Limited of Indianapolis, IN.

The 130,000 sq. ft. building is located on the school's campus in Gambier, OH.

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Kenyon College

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located in Batavia, Illinois, 40 miles west of Chicago, is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics.

As part of the Short Baseline Neutrino (SBN) program at Fermilab a 20.10' x 23.9' bifold liftstrap door was installed in the new 4,500 sq. ft. SBN Near Detector Building.

The door features gray liftstraps, electric photo eye sensors, warning lights and horns, a top-drive motor, automatic latching system and an emergency back-up system. The door is clad with glass on the bottom quarter and high performance light transmitting Kalwall® panels covering the top three-quarters of the door, both to identically match the adjacent east wall of the building.

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Fermilab

The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston has added a new expansion of its artistic programming across Boston Harbor to the East Boston Shipyard and Marina. It presents artwork and public programs in a newly renovated 15,000 square-foot former copper pipe and sheet metal factory.

Convenient for this purpose were two very unique Schweiss bifold designer doors positioned at opposite ends of the building. The doors are each 15.9' wide by 19' tall. The bifold doors in this project are unique in that the top half of the doors is emblazoned with the ICA Watershed logo which overlaps the bottom half and still remains visible with the door partially opened. Translucent polycarbonate cladding also gives the door a glow allowing colors and light from inside the Watershed to show through.

“The doors were big with very robust frames, that's why we chose Schweiss.” said Nick Winton of the architectural firm of Anmahian Winton Architects. “We wanted to use a lightweight cladding material that was inexpensive and handled daylight well.”

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ICA Water Shed

An approximate $11 million 47,000-square-foot facility will steer high school students onto the road of success. Bordering the north side of the Lone Star College-Kingwood campus in Porter, Infinity Early College High School (IECHS) in New Caney, Texas, is an innovative high school that allows students least likely to attend college an opportunity to earn a high school diploma and either an associate degree or at least 60 college credit hours toward a baccalaureate degree in the time it takes to graduate from high school.

Included in the building project are three Schweiss bifold designer doors with glass cladding. They range in size from 11.6' wide to 9.3' and all have clear opening heights of 7.75'. The liftstrap doors, powered by top-drive motors are equipped with electric photo eye sensors, door base safety edges and manual side latches.

The purpose of these doors was to separate the main area of the school from the kitchen. The doors are located completely inside the building.

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New Caney College/HS

Schweiss bifold and hydraulic doors have been known to have exterior cladding utilizing many materials from decorative wood, glass, stucco, brick and much more. One that really stands out is the aluminum plank cladding that was put on a 38' 1" x 15' bifold liftstrap door in use at the South College Academic Facility at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst

The aluminum plank-clad 38' x 15' Schweiss bifold liftstrap door is being used on a new steel building. This very attractive designer door has electric photo eyes, black liftstraps, automatic latching system and a door base safety edge. The interior of the door is clad with corrugated aluminum siding.

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Hydraulic Doors

Guide Dogs of America (GDA) unveiled its latest expansion in Sylmar, Calif. The new 16,000 sq. ft. building celebrated the dedication of the Macki and Phil Singer Visitor and Education Center.

Its mission is to provide professionally trained guide dogs free of charge to blind men and women across the U.S. and Canada and to graduate more guide dog teams and instruction in their use.

Schweiss Doors provided the new facility with a 41' 10" x 11' 2" bifold liftstrap glass designer door. The door is fitted with photo eye sensors and is powered by two top-drive 3 h.p. 460v electric motors.

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Guide Dogs of America

Crowne Architectural Systems Inc. out of New Jersey installed a 9' 6" x 15' hydraulic display window into this New York City Museum.

The custom installed - all metal window frames are clad with glass and powered by a hidden hydraulic pump to run the hydraulic cylinders.

The window has electric photo eye sensors and a door base safety edge.

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Hydraulic Doors

The new Warren Harding High School in Bridgeport, Connecticut included a 34.8' x 26.11' Schweiss bifold liftstrap designer door. It has galvanized wind and side rails, a top-drive motor, electric photo eye sensors and a door base safety edge with black liftstraps.

The bifold door allows the stage to double as an amphitheater. Construction on the school earned it a LEED Silver Certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).

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Warren Harding HS

Sounds like something out of a James Bond 007 movie. Spy Hop digital media arts group in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a student learning center that works with about 100 kids at a time and sees upwards of 18,000 kids a year.

The event stage at the top of the building, appropriately called “The Rooftop” has a Schweiss bifold door that opens the whole indoor space to the patio performance area outside as well as a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains.

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Spy Hop

The Memorial Stadium Performance Center at University of Illinois just got three new Schweiss glass-clad designer doors. The doors act as the entry point for their second floor offices, meeting rooms, coaches lockers, lounge, and main auditorium. The doors lead outside to a patio with its own mini golf course. The largest door is a 22' x 11' bifold liftstrap door with two more 10' x 11' doors on either side.

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U of Illinois Stadium

Ron Fagen's new WWII Museum in Granite Falls, MN draws crowds from all over the USA for huge air shows and live entertainment. It's nice to have a great show right in our backyard for the aviation enthusiast and general public to take part in! Schweiss provided the strap lift bifold door on the main museum structure weighing 32,000 lbs., it's built strong enough to withstand 190 mph winds.

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Fagen WWII Museum