A huge canopy clad with insulated metal wall panels from Kingspan Benchmark is the signature feature of Boston’s $550 million convention center. Ground was broken for the 1.7 million sq. ft. facility in 2000, with completion finally coming in June 2004.

Rafael Vinoly Architects of New York City, in a joint venture with HNTB of Kansas City, MO, collaborated on the project. The project was originally to have a fabric canopy but was revised to use Benchmark’s smooth-faced Designwall™ Series insulated metal panels instead. Nearly 65,000 sq. ft. of Designwall™ Series 1000V insulated panels were used on the canopy’s soffit, while another 30,000 sq. ft. of Designwall™ Series 2000V panels was utilized as wall cladding.

The 1000V vertically-oriented panels needed for the soffit have .040” aluminum skins and are 1-1/8” thick. They have a Designer White PVDF paint finish and an R-5 insulation rating. The 2”-thick 2000V panels used on the walls have a matching paint finish. Also featuring .040” aluminum skins, those panels have an R-15 rating.

The convention center is state-of-the-art and the canopy helps convey that from the exterior. In addition to WIFI access throughout, the facility has the latest audio/visual capabilities and interruption-free cellular phone coverage.

The installer of the insulated metal panels was Lymo Construction of Merrimack, NH. Clark Construction Group of Bethesda, MD, Hunt Construction Corp. of Indianapolis, IN, and William A. Berry & Son Inc. of Danvers, MA, shared construction management duties.