Named for a local couple who have championed senior issues, the Charles and Rae Kane Center in Stuart, Florida is situated on a nine-acre wooded campus in a primarily residential area. Designed in the traditional Florida vernacular—with tall windows, plank siding and metal roofing from Englert Inc.—the center fits well with similar architecture and has a hometown, residential feel.
The building is hurricane-hardy, serves as an evacuation shelter for seniors and their pets, and, is also a green building, meeting U. S. Green Building Council silver certification
Total Roofing Systems, Inc. of Port St. Lucie, Florida completed the roof of the much anticipated senior center. The roofing system featured modified bitumen on the flat roofs and 39,000 square feet of standing seam metal roofing on the sloped roof areas. Total Roofing Systems installed the underlying tapered insulation and rigid insulation on the metal decking of both systems. Some areas of the project were designed with R-30 insulation that was up to five inches thick, consequently there were three or four different areas with different thicknesses of insulation and metal deck, requiring Total to use different length screws with clips.
One other interesting requirement was the use of round downspouts with a conventional ogee gutter that required Total Roofing to do jobsite engineering to make elbows to fit. In addition, the job required some intricate planning with other contractors on the jobsite, particularly the window installers on the project’s two clerestories so that their presence on the roof would not cause any damage during construction.
The owners and architect had four core goals in planning the building:
1. Create a physically bright and cheerful building inside and out
2. Meet LEED requirements for certification
3. Create a building that could serve as a "stormworthy" shelter
4. Create a design consistent with the character of the region
Architect Danny Bumpus of Celebration, Florida used metal to meet them. In response to the goal for bright vibrant colors throughout the structure, bright blue, white and yellow were the colors chosen for the exterior and interior of the building. Bumpus chose a Pacific Blue standing seam metal roof which also was designed into a large open area inside the building atop the roofs of several tiny interior shops serving visitors to the complex. It was also chosen after the executive director of the aging council found that blue is calming and an easy to process color for seniors, particularly those with macular degeneration.
An Englert Series 2000 standing seam profile was chosen because it met the 140-mile an hour wind uplift requirements for the Florida Building and Miami Dade Building Codes. The structure was designed as an emergency shelter for seniors and their pets and was also specified with impact resistant cladding and glass, a generator to serve the entire facility and extra bathroom facilities to accommodate storm victims seeking shelter.
The architect researched old Florida designs particularly those around Stuart and the neighboring areas. The design chosen for the facility was the Florida vernacular style, which historically features pastel colors, porches and multi-pitched roof lines with metal material, elements originally developed in response to Florida's climate. The standing seam metal roof chosen was representative of roofing material historically used in the area and allowed the designer to replicate the blue used in the shutter design.
The use of Englert UltraCool 22-gauge, 14-inch wide snap lock standing seam panel also provided the architect with LEED recycled content credits (Credit 4.1-4.2) and the LEED 7.2 credit for roofs that reduce heat islands (thermal gradient differences between developed and undeveloped areas) to minimize impact on microclimate and human and wildlife habitat. All standard Englert standing seam roof coatings are LEED and Energy Star compliant.