PPG Coatings and Paints Adorn First Certified Green Convention Center

The David L. Lawrence Convention Center opened in Pittsburgh, Pa. in 2003 as the world’s first certified green convention center. The center encompasses more than 1.5 million square feet of exhibit and meeting space, and the building’s architect integrated PPG’s full spectrum of architectural coatings and paints in their design.

Used inside and outside, PPG coatings and paints are said to be instrumental to the environmental performance of the building. On the exterior metal building panels and skylights, various shades of PPG Duranar coatings provide extended durability, which reduced the need for repainting and other kinds of maintenance.

PPG’s Duranar, a corrosion-inhibitive primer and fluoropolymer topcoat, delivers durability and aesthetic appeal to the metal roof and wall panels. Duranar coil coating systems reportedly meet or exceed FGIA/AAMA 2605 weathering performance requirements and feature PPG-proprietary resin and pigment technologies with 70% fluoropolymer base resins. The coating is said to deliver proven resistance to color fading, acid rain, ultraviolet rays, chipping and peeling.

Indoors, zero- and low-emitting paints and coatings such as Pittsburgh Paints’ Pure Performance paint are said to reduce exposure to airborne toxins while creating an attractive meeting and convention environment.

A large percentage of materials used to construct the building, including those from PPG, were manufactured with recycled content and within a 500-mile radius of Pittsburgh. According to PPG, the primary goal of the architect was to create an environmentally advanced structure that would repay its energy investment in less than 10 years. The building features a number of energy saving features, including a cooling plant that runs on water drawn from an underground aquifer; natural cross ventilation created by river currents collected by the center’s swooping roofline; and a gray water system that recycles half the center’s water, saving an estimated 6.5 million gallons of water a year.