Keeping the Warm in the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute

By: Architectural Visions

In the early years of Warm Springs, GA, Creek and Iroquois Indians frequented the eternally warm waters of the springs. They brought their sick and wounded to be “healed” in the mineral-rich springs.

Late President Franklin D. Roosevelt first gave national recognition to Warm Springs in 1924, when he visited the town’s naturally heated mineral springs as treatment for his polio related paralysis. Roosevelt was so enchanted with Warm Springs that he built the only home he ever owned there, a modest, six-room cottage called the Little White House, which regularly served as his haven during regular visits. It is here that he relaxed and socialized and here that he died on April 12, 1945 while posing for the “Unfinished Portrait.”

In keeping with the Roosevelt legacy, the new Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation (RWSIR), a unit of the Georgia Department of Labor’s Division of Rehabilitation Services has set a mission to “empower persons with disabilities to achieve personal independence.”

The 130,000 square foot state-of-the-art complex includes apartments, dormitory-style accommodations for 152 students, a library, vending café and multiple meeting rooms. The complex has a massive entry hall featuring exposed hardwood beams cut and constructed from trees formerly grown on the site, and features Marvin and Integrity Windows throughout.

AVI Commercial Business Developer Dale Schmitz worked with architect Cooper Carry and contractor Batson Cook to specify Integrity® from Marvin All-Ultrex® fiberglass windows for the dormitory portion of the building. The original specifications for the library and café called for commercial glazing (storefront systems). The architect concluded that due to the expansive glass, commercial glazing would be the best solution. Dale however, was able to recommend Marvin’s rectangle direct glazed units. His selling point was the architectural cohesiveness of our wood interiors with the timber frame construction in the space.

To help convince the architects, Dale worked with Brian Barrett in AVI Architectural Support and with colleagues in Marvin’s architectural department on shop drawings. Dale, Brian, and AVI installation contractor Gary had several jobsite meetings with the architect and contractor to ensure the recommended system would work. They determined solutions for spacing, structural requirements, and mulling. They also ultimately recommended that the entire project be sold as an installed project.

In the end, the architect and contractor loved the recommendations and included Marvin products instead of commercial glazing. They also contracted with AVI to install the entire project, ensuring that Marvin Windows and Doors’ energy efficient, high quality products are helping keep the warmth in the Warm Springs complex.