lgn3203

Editorial: A design freedom unimaginable 10 years ago
 
"New interlayer technologies like DuPont™ SentryGlas® Plus are excellent for our industry because they help to stretch the envelope of what can be achieved with glass in buildings," says Ferran Figuerola, CEO of Cricursa, Spain

Architects today want more glass in buildings. The laminated glass technologies we have now means they can have that safely, and with a freedom unimaginable 10 years ago - whether in terms of structural strength, colors and decoration or delicately varying degrees of translucency, with the lovely effects this brings.

Architects also love using new laminated glass compositions with interlayers such as DuPont™ SentryGlas® Plus because it allows them to use thinner, stronger glass constructions in lighter, clutter-free fixing systems like point-fixed glazing - which makes the glass, for all its strength, seem invisible, often making any barrier between inside and outside melt away and opening up the building to natural daylight to the maximum.

New on the market

New interlayer technologies like DuPont™ SentryGlas® Plus are excellent for our industry because they help to stretch the envelope of what can be achieved with glass in buildings. Architects are generally slow to adopt new technologies, preferring to take a 'wait and see attitude', but the quite significant new structural strength properties of the interlayer are becoming more apparent with every project it is used in, throughout the world. At Cricursa, we are beginning to understand that the use of SentryGlas® Plus with annealed glass can complement or even obviate the need for the strength of tempered glass in a laminated construction needing high strength. This new type of laminated construction also brings the overall weight of the glass down, more good news for architects who want to use very large panes of glass in their façades; the whole façade weighs less and needs a less cumbersome support system. Part of the structural support is coming from the interlayer itself, which is a very interesting concept.

Today's lamination technologies have helped architects apply glamour to glass! And it's not only the aesthetics of the material that attracts the architects and the building industry; today's laminated glass works much harder than anyone could have imagined 10 years ago to meet a range of functional needs - from demanding wind load requirements in high rise buildings throughout the world, seismic loading where this is needed, or impact resistance in typhoon or hurricane regions. The marriage of glass with metal has also captured the imaginations of many architects because of the astonishing visual effects achievable when you laminate glass to metal mesh, and also because of new fixing possibilities if you can glue metal fixings right into the SentryGlas® Plus structural interlayer - as Apple did for the Apple Store in SoHo and, following the success of that project, for an evolution of similar staircases in subsequent stores.

Most of all, I believe that architects are fascinated by the new ways to control light that laminated glass gives them: by building in various degrees of opacity; by using Low E coatings to control shading very tightly and by the use of colors of decoration within glass, for example. The architects we work with worldwide are very interested in decorative technologies like DuPont™ SentryGlas® Expressions™ decorative technology as an efficient and flexible new way of introducing a whole new range of visual possibilities into laminated glass.

The architectural world is getting more global Today, I would no longer say that architects from one continent want this or work that way while architects from a different continent work another way or want other things. The architects we work with are very spread out geographically. European architects work in the USA; U.S. architects work in Europe; Japanese architects work in Europe. They are hardly ever to be found in their home office! And a trend I see is that each major city across the planet wants its signature building, and almost by default this has to be designed by an architect from a different continent! Perhaps because an architect from elsewhere gives a refreshing new perspective to the assignment.

As for the future of laminated architectural glass, that depends on which gifted architect walks into our office tomorrow! We are always honored to be working on new architectural laminated glass challenges that go to make incredible buildings, all over the world.

Ferran Figuerola

Founded in 1928 near Barcelona, Spain, Cricursa supplies curved and flat glass to architects worldwide.