Founded in 2001 by Rodrigo d’Escoto Jr., Reflection Window + Wall is growing in success as it designs, manufactures and installs enclosures for some of the world’s tallest buildings.
The Chicago-based architectural building envelope company, specializing in the engineering, preconstruction and management of facade construction projects, has cultivated a national and global presence with offices in the United States and in Dubai, Shanghai, Manila and Valencia , Spain.
Its domestic revenue grew to $209 million in 2023 from $158 million in 2022, with 95% of last year’s total coming from installations of its own enclosure products that include walls of windows, curtain walls and railings, according to the company.
About 95% of Reflection Window + Wall’s revenue comes from installing its own products.
Photo courtesy of Reflection Window + Wall
Back story
D’Escoto, the company’s president and CEO, is the son of a Nicaraguan immigrant who owned a construction engineering management firm and did cost estimating for the Sears Tower project. Young d’Escoto was working in sales for a medical supply company in Los Angeles in 1995 when his father suggested he return to Chicago and get into construction because the city’s public schools had come up with a plan $5 billion construction project that promised to work for minorities. -owned companies
Back in Chicago, d’Escoto started a company that required him to learn the art and science of installing shutters on the job, as well as other lessons about running and growing a business.
“Early in my career, I didn’t know anything,” he says. “No one teaches you how to find the best insurance, read a contract, understand the specifications and the difference between private and public work. I signed bad contracts and went to school.”
The company filed for bankruptcy, he notes, “but when we came out of it and started Reflection Window + Wall, everyone hired me back because I had done it honorably, and we’ve been growing ever since.”
The exterior of a 44-story cylindrical tower at 1 South Halsted in Chicago reflects the nearby cityscape.
Photo courtesy of Reflection Window + Wall
Launch of a product line
Those lessons, including the dangers of relying on outside product manufacturers, led d’Escoto to ultimately decide to design and manufacture its own closure items. I was tired of receiving calls from suppliers saying that a product delivery would be late or that a needed item was manufactured incorrectly or leaked.
“It’s very difficult to make money when you guarantee a job to a general contractor and the outside supplier calls and says, ‘Sorry, we had a bad day today and we’re going to be a couple of months late on delivery.’ ”, he says.
“We own and guarantee the complete delivery of this product from cradle to grave.”
—Rodrigo d’Escoto Jr., founder, president and CEO of Reflection Window + Wall
A light bulb went off for d’Escoto, who realized he was “always going to be stuck in the middle,” adding that “by making my own product, I was able to make sure it was on time and met the specifications”.
Describing what Reflection Window + Wall does, d’Escoto says his company is involved with the product from the start, whether it’s manufacturing, designing or testing it, or installing the building “We own the full cradle-to-grave delivery of this product, and we guarantee it,” he says.
Today, the company employs about 200, including 100 designers and engineers who advise architects, developers, contractors and others on products, which is a change from how business was done 20 years ago, d’Escoto says.
“In 2001, architects were very prescriptive in what they wanted,” he points out. “Now they just say, ‘Here’s a representation. That’s the overall performance we need.” As a result, we’re making design assistance across the board.”
Reflection Window + Wall has also developed a great internship program, allowing d’Escoto to introduce a new generation to an industry that continues to fuel his own interest and passion. As a former board member of the Hispanic American Construction Industry Association, he also promotes Hispanic participation in the construction industry.
The firm worked on a 27-story residential tower in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.
Photo courtesy of Reflection Window + Wall
recent work
The bulk of the firm’s work comes from high-rise projects, such as The Reed, located at 1400 S. Wabash Ave., and the 311 W. Huron building, both in Chicago; 26-32 Jackson Ave. in New York City; and the 1500 mission in San Francisco. Chicago developer Related Midwest tapped the firm’s expertise for the site of The Row Fulton Market, a 43-story apartment tower in Chicago’s West Loop.
“I think the secret sauce of what Rodrigo and his team do is that they understand the specialty that a developer, an owner and an architect are trying to create with a building,” says Don Biernacki, executive vice president of Related Midwest. Team members “work really hard to get it done without it going wrong, which can lead to long-term performance issues.” Biernacki, who says he’s known d’Escoto for 15 years, adds that Reflection Window + Wall “thinks outside the box but … in a careful way.”
Reflection Window + Wall provided design assistance for the 210,000-square-foot shutter system at One South Halsted in Chicago.
Photo courtesy of Reflection Window + Wall
The Row’s reinforced concrete structure features an exterior of extruded aluminum channels and arched rafter plates that connect beams and columns, mirroring the appearance of the structural steel supports of the nearby rapid transit system tracks .
“If you look at it, it looks pretty simple, but it’s not,” says Biernacki. “There are numerous details and a depth of detail that creates a shadow effect. It adds a level of complexity when you modify what might be standard, and at the same time you make sure it works in terms of strength.”
D’Escoto says the company takes tried and tested products and adapts them as needed to benefit a project and get the most value for the client. “This is a much more cost-effective and performance-wise approach for those who reinvent the wheel on every project,” he says.
“The secret sauce of what Rodrigo [d’Escoto] and their team is that they understand the specialty that a developer, an owner and an architect are trying to create with a building.”
—Don Biernacki, Executive Vice President, Related Midwest
Reflection Window + Wall is often among the first specialty contractors on a job because team members are installing the enclosure that will protect the building and project workers from wind, rain, sun and snow .
“In high-rise construction, it’s all about sequencing,” says Biernacki. “If one thing comes off, then everything comes off. That’s especially true when you’re closing a building and you’re fighting snow and ice.”
A Reflection Window + Wall project stays on track because “it provides leadership and field oversight familiar with quality expectations, and that makes a big difference,” says Biernacki.
According to d’Escoto, Reflection Window + Wall is expanding its product line with a focus on sustainability, starting with low-carbon extrusions and glass. The first is defined as a material that has less than 4 kg of carbon dioxide per 1 kg of aluminum, a carbon dioxide saving of 75% to 85% over current processes, the company says.
The exterior of Row at Fulton Market mimics the look of the structural steel supports of the tracks of the nearby transit system.
Photo courtesy of Reflection Window + Wall
Reinventing facades
With his interest in sustainability, d’Escoto says he is thinking about “How can I add value to the future of our industry? How do we navigate a warming planet? How do we offer an affordable product?”
The company’s sustainable product line, Project Gallo, has received numerous patents and incorporates building-integrated photovoltaics and electrochromics, which allow energy to be conserved and generated on building facades. “We’re rethinking the way facades create energy in a system that can be updated and maintained from inside the building while delivering the exterior aesthetic the architect desires,” he says.
D’Escoto notes that the product offers a net negative carbon impact to offset a building’s operational carbon emissions.
reinventing the way people look at facades and what a facade is capable of doing from an energy perspective,” he says.
