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lgn1811

Safety and delight in public attractions – with laminated glass

National Botanic Garden of Wales uses laminated glass for world's largest single-span greenhouse

The Great Glasshouse swells out from the ground like a grassy hill.

Foster and Partners of London says that its Great Glasshouse in the National Botanic Garden of Wales (completion: 2000) has reinvented the botanical glasshouse for the 21^st century by using laminated glass.

The largest single-span greenhouse in the world, the Glasshouse contains more than a thousand plant species – many endangered – and conserves specimens from warm climates around the globe. The laminated glass roof's torodial form measures 99 m x 55 m and swells from the ground like a grassy hillock, echoing the undulations of the surrounding landscape.

Foster project architect Nigel Curry told LGN: "We used 5,000 m² of laminated glass in the roof to comply with overhead glazing regulations and allow safe access for maintenance staff." The glazing system and its tubular-steel supporting structure is designed to minimize materials and maximize light transmission. The laminator for this project was Eckelt of Austria.