Ralph D. Turlington
Florida Education Center:
A Challenging Façade Restoration Project in Tallahassee
The Ralph D. Turlington Florida Education Center, commonly known as the Turlington Building, cuts a striking figure in the Tallahassee, Florida skyline. The iconic, multi-angled, 18-story structure features a highly pitched roofline that pierces upward in a strong, modernist architectural style.
Since its construction in 1989, the building’s aluminum and glass panel exterior lost its luster. Its once bright-white exterior had become dull and muddled after decades of windborne dust and grime and relentless UV exposure. As it came to the end of its lifespan, the original factory coating on the metal panels still had good adhesion and wasn’t peeling, but the clear topcoat had disintegrated, creating a textured surface that retained dirt.
To help restore the building to its original factory fresh-looking finish, the owners undertook a full façade restoration, using NeverFade® Exterior Paints formulated with Kynar Aquatec® PVDF resin. The goal: a long-lasting finish that would stand up to the area’s unique environmental conditions.
PVDF-Based Field-Applied Coating for Metal Panels
Kynar Aquatec® PVDF resin is a tough, engineered thermoplastic polymer that promotes excellent weatherability, color retention, and abrasion resistance thanks to carbon-fluorine bonds that do not break down under exposure to the elements. It has extreme weatherability like that of Kynar 500® PVDF resin-based coatings, which have been used in factory finishes on exterior building materials for six decades. Side-by-side southern Florida weathering testing of Kynar 500® and Kynar Aquatec® based coatings over the past 24 years show similarly superlative performance with respect to color fade and chalking.
Kynar Aquatec® PVDF resin helps APV Engineered Coatings’ field-applied water-based NeverFade® Exterior Paints resist extreme UV rays, high temperatures, humidity and abrasion from salt spray, sand and other windblown particles. It also hinders mold, mildew and dirt pickup for over 20 years a much longer lifespan than the five-year lifecycle typically seen with high-performance urethanes and acrylic latex paints. In climates such as Florida’s, traditional high-performance paints break down under UV exposure, eroding over time and eventually leaving the building’s substrate bare and open to damage from the elements.
According to the project’s architect, NeverFade® with Kynar Aquatec® PVDF was an ideal choice for resisting the dirt pickup that plagued the Turlington Building in the past – a key consideration for the white-colored building.
The choice of NeverFade® Exterior Paints with Kynar Aquatec® was further solidified by its industry-leading 15-year product and labor warranty that covers fading, plus the fact that it is a one-component water-based air-dry system. Tallahassee’s high temperatures and humidity would have caused two-component systems to become tacky quickly, making them difficult to roll on and making application almost impossible. In addition, the water-based Kynar Aquatec® PVDF based coating is low in volatile organic compounds (VOCs), meaning building occupants and the painting crew were not inconvenienced by nuisance odors.
A Challenging Application
Because of the Turlington Building’s height, multiple faces, and 45-degree roof angle, it was challenging to paint. Two crew members manned swing stages hung from the roof, while a support crew member remained on the ground.
The swing stages only reached the 16th floor of the 18-story building, so an additional crew of up to 6 rappelers on bosun chairs worked on higher levels. Given these extreme conditions and the extreme sun and wind, the contractor needed a coating formula that would be easy to apply via roller, at the appropriate film thickness and with a quick dry time, but not so quick that they couldn’t maintain uniform coverage across the panels. NeverFade® Exterior Paints with Kynar Aquatec® fit the bill perfectly.
Everyone involved in the project was extremely pleased with the finished result and the support they received from Arkema and APV throughout the project. The coatings contractor is now using the Kynar Aquatec® based coating on different surfaces like masonry, stucco, and roofing and is specifying it for just about every new project they bid on to help keep buildings looking clean and fresh for decades.