Architecture Firm Uses ACRYLITE® Satinice To Revitalize Office Décor

Canada-based HDR Architecture Associates chose Evonik’s ACRYLITE^® Satinice acrylic sheets to redesign the company’s main conference room at the Kingston, Ontario, office with a series of interconnected panels forming the shape of a ship’s hull.

Navigation maps of local surrounding waterways were printed directly onto the panels to honor the nautical history of Kingston, Ontario, where the Cataraqui and St. Lawrence rivers flow into Lake Ontario.

“Simplicity and translucence was our primary goal,” said Jason Emery Groën, vice president and design principal at HDR Architecture Associates. “ACRYLITE^® Satinice gave us the effect we wanted within budget. We have extended meetings, both internally and with clients, so we felt it was important to inspire everyone with a beautiful space that also represents the creativity and intellectual capital of the firm. The conference room has a dynamic feel at all times of day—lit from outside windows in daytime, and at night, the room glows like a lantern outward toward our production space and main entrance.”

HDR Architecture Associates is part of HDR, Inc., a global architecture, engineering and consulting firm with nearly 9,000 employees in more than 190 offices. Despite the company’s global reach, the employees in Kingston are passionately connected to the local area and were determined to honor the city’s nautical past. They turned to local printer Gilmore Reproductions for help in printing the navigation maps onto the ACRYLITE^® Satinice panels.

“They had a printer that could print directly on 8’x4’ sheets of ACRYLITE^® Satinice,” said Groën. “They fell in love with how easy it is to work with.”

Jason Polen, account executive at Gilmore Reproductions, agrees noting, “Normally you need to dry mount a graphic to the material or apply cut vinyl after the fact. However, ACRYLITE^® Satinice was both thin and durable enough for our printer to image directly onto the panels. With the use of UV cured inks this process will also help extend the lifespan and protect from fading.”

“The excellent light transmission and diffusion properties of ACRYLITE^® Satinice were critical for the design,” said Antoinette Spages, marketing and communications director for acrylic polymers at Evonik. “It’s always exciting to see our customers use ACRYLITE^® Satinice in such unique ways.”

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