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Salzburg villa winter garden extension wins residential laminated glass award

A view of the winter garden from the garden, showing the large (175 x 300cm), frameless, laminated glass door

Aneta Bulant-Kamenova and Klaus Wailzer, two architects from Vienna, Austria have won the 1998 DuPont Residential Benedictus Award for their conversion and extension of the 60 year-old 'Sailor House', a Salzburg villa. For the winter garden extension, the architects used a construction of laminated, freestanding glass with a supporting construction of silicon-glazed glass, never before used in Austria.

The objective of the extension was to add a weather-protected space that could be used all year and would open up the house to the south-sided garden. The architects described the result as: "An expression of pure protective function and spatial connection with the outside … a membrane space." It was achieved by a reduction of materials to just one – namely laminated glass. The basic structure consists of two columns, screwed to two beams at the front side, constructed in triple-sheet laminated glass. The roof boards of isolated toughened safety glass with a 'fritted' ceramic pattern are adhered to these laminated glass beams.

It took a bold effort on the part of the architects, clients and glaziers to build such an innovative structure with a minimum of fastened parts. As the architects said: "After this first experiment, the glazier is ready to carry out similar ideas for other projects." The Benedictus panel of judges described the Sailor House extension as: "Very fresh and exciting in the way it responds to the Austrian house … a space integrator from the outside to the inside."