lgn1906

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill: using laminated glass across three continents

Founded in 1936, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) has offices in New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, London and Hong Kong. Senior SOM partners Roger Duffy, Brian Lee and Craig W. Hartman - and the firm's technical director, Keith Boswell - granted LGN interviews on SOM projects across three continents of the world.

Les Arcs de Seine, Paris: floor to ceiling glazing

Duffy

Les Arcs de Seine, Paris

This project comprises four buildings in an existing office precinct. SOM Partner Roger Duffy told LGN: "All four of these buildings were 're-skinned' with laminated glass curtain walls, giving them a whole new look, which is very unified.

Duffy continued: "From the interior, we wanted to offer occupants the best possible river views, so we designed floor to ceiling glazing incorporating laminated glass while the spandrel portions are laminated tempered glass. Laminated glass is the only option for floor to ceiling glazing anywhere in the world because of the safety factor it brings; in this case it was also indispensable in achieving our design goals.

"On each of the facades we incorporated photos of the River Seine into the glass (with the help of Vertal, Groupe Glaverbel) both turbulent water and quiet water shots. We wanted this in order to make the buildings harmonious with their riverside environment and to give them an interesting 'face'. This helps to distinguish the four new buildings very clearly from their more traditionalist neighbors. For an institutional building, this project's pretty cool!"

The construction of the laminated glass façade is: 6 mm outer lite + 0.76 mm PVB interlayer + 4 mm inner lite. The images are fritted onto the spandrel glass (tempered surface no. 2). The frit was applied by silkscreening prior to heat treatment of the glass by Troesch. The laminator for the project was Favelor of Epinel (Spain) while the façade specialist was Paralu of Brignais (France).