Table Of Content∂ Practice
Glass in
Building
Principles
Applications
Examples
Bernhard Weller
Kristina Härth
Silke Tasche
Stefan Unnewehr
Edition Detail
∂ Practice
Glass in Building
Principles
Applications
Examples
Bernhard Weller
Kristina Härth
Silke Tasche
Stefan Unnewehr
Birkhäuser
Edition Detail
Authors:
Bernhard Weller, Prof. Dr.-Ing.
Kristina Härth, Dipl.-Ing.
Silke Tasche, Dr.-Ing.
Stefan Unnewehr, Dipl.-Ing. Architect
Project management:
Steffi Lenzen, Dipl.-Ing. Architect
Editorial services:
Nicola Kollmann, Dipl.-Ing. Architect
Editorial assistants:
Melanie Weber, Dipl.-Ing. Architect; Carola Jacob-Ritz, M. A.
Florian Krainer, Dipl.-Ing.; Eva Schönbrunner, Dipl.-Ing.
Drawings:
Dejanira Bitterer, Dipl.-Ing.; Daniel Hajduk, Dipl.-Ing.;
Michal Korte; Simon Kramer, Dipl.-Ing.; Heiko Mattausch, Dipl.-Ing.
Translators (German /English):
Gerd H. Söffker, Philip Thrift, Hannover
© 2009 Institut für internationale
Architektur-Dokumentation GmbH & Co. KG, Munich
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ISBN: 978-3-0346-0132-0
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∂ Practice
Glass in Building
Contents
7 Introduction
Basic glass and derived products
11 The material glass
13 Manufacturing the basic products
14 Sheet glass treatments
19 Further glass products
Glasses for special requirements
21 Sound insulation
24 Safety, security
26 Fire protection
29 Thermal insulation and solar control
Designing with glass
33 Optics and perception
38 Structural concepts
43 Vertical glazing
46 Glazing as a safety barrier
49 Overhead glazing
53 Glazing for foot traffic
54 Glazing for limited foot traffic
55 Safety of glass in circulation zones
Constructing with glass
60 Clamp fixings
64 Drilled fixings
68 Bonded fixings
Building legislation provisions
73 An overview of German legislation
74 Building products of glass
76 Forms of construction with glass
78 Non-regulated building products and forms of construction
81 Experimental tests for glass constructions
Examples of the use of building with glass
83 Overview
84 Museum in Kansas City
86 Liesborn Abbey Museum
88 Mixed commercial and residential building in Aarau
90 Production building in Hettenshausen
92 Glass museum in Toledo
94 Overhead glazing to refectory and president’s office at
Technische Universität Dresden
96 “Schubert Club Band Shell” concert pavilion in Minnesota
98 Glass staircase in Paris
100 Dutch embassy in Berlin
Appendix
103 Glossary, standards and directives,
bibliography, manufacturers and associations
109 Index
111 Picture credits
Introduction
Building with glass by a chapter devoted to case studies of
This book deals with the use of glass in structures already built. And finally, the
building as an architectural and engineer- appendix lists standards and sources of
ing discipline. As such, it is concerned further information and includes a glossary
with research into the use of glass in the to help readers understand the special-
building industry and its deployment in ised terminology used in this book.
technically complex structures and
assemblies that go beyond the knowledge The importance of glass in building
of the glazing trade. The nature and size Glass is a fascinating and ambivalent
of these applications call for elaborate building material. In use, it is, on the one
methods of calculation or special con- hand, demanding because it does not
structional solutions. In this context, glass forgive any design or construction errors,
is sometimes used not simply as an infill but, on the other hand, indulgent when it
material; instead it is designed to carry is handled properly. When used correctly,
loads that exceed the actions per unit area its high demands on planning – and often
due to self-weight, temperature fluctuations, also its high demands on finances – are
wind and snow. Such loads result from rewarded by gains in daylight and trans-
the diverse tasks that glass has to fulfil parency. Both aspects, i.e. our relation-
besides its usual function as a light-per- ship with the sun and our surroundings,
meable enclosing material. Glass can be represent elementary human needs that
used to resist explosions or repel attacks, are reflected in the esteem bestowed on
serve as a safety barrier or traffica ble sur- this transparent building material. The
face, or even function as a loadbearing constantly changing expression of the
component in the overall construction. glass in the play of light and shade evokes
Following descriptions of the basic products, stimulating sensual impressions. It is not
their physical features and the various without reason that the windows of a house
processing methods (chapter 1), four fur- are likened to the eyes of a human being.
ther chapters explain clearly the principal
relationships in the use of glass as a con- Production of glass
structional material. The chapter “Glasses The production and further development
for special requirements” is followed by a of glass, a man-made material, depends
chapter devoted to architectural design on several factors: the raw materials that
with respect to the optical properties of form the original mix, the heat energy
glass, the particular loadbearing and required to melt those raw materials, the
safety concepts, components and appli- technical conditions of a glassworks or
cations (“Designing with glass”). The factory, and, last but not least, highly
proper forms of connection, fixing and experienced and inventive personnel. The
support are the subject of the next chap- basic composition of the raw materials
ter, “Constructing with glass”. To enable mix has essentially never altered: sand,
expeditious, cost-effective and reliable potash, or rather soda, and lime. After a
planning, the chapter “Building legislation method for producing soda artificially was
provisions” provides architects and engi- developed in France in the late 18th cen-
neers with everything they need to know tury, the cost of making glass was cut
about the legal side of building with glass considerably, which led to soda replacing
because those applications not covered potash as one of the main constituents.
by rules or regulations may require time- Up until about 1800 the enormous quan-
consuming, costly tests. This is followed tity of energy required to raise the tem-
7
Introduction
1
perature to the 1500 °C or more neces- cast glass into an expensive mirror. was that of the Industrial Revolution. With
sary to melt the raw materials was achieved Up until that time the raw materials were the aid of the energy sources coal and
almost exclusively with wood. But from always heated in batches, but the inven- coke, the steam engine became – literally
the start of the 19th century onwards, coal tion of the continuous tank furnace by – the driving force behind an evolution
was increasingly used as the energy source Friedrich Siemens in 1867, which he used that transformed workshops into factories
in regions where wood was becoming in his glassworks in Dresden, marks the for producing standardised products in
scarce, e.g. England, and later on the start of the modern age of glass melt ever greater numbers. This process was
European continent [1]. technology [4]. At the start of the 20th speeded up by the fact that many inven-
century the Belgian Emile Fourcault pat- tions were both the result of and the foun-
Up until the end of the 17th century, flat ented his “drawing method” in which the dation for industrialisation. Progress in
glass could only be produced in a two- glass is drawn continuously out of the science – especially exact methods for
stage process that involved producing a melt vertically by means of rollers. This the calculation of loadbearing structures –
hollow vessel first [2]. There were essen- method provided the missing piece in the and political changes, too, e.g. the aboli-
tially two ways of doing this, which existed jigsaw of the industrialisation of glass pro- tion of a luxury tax on glass in England in
side by side owing to the different proper- duction. As the glass only comes into 1851, helped to power developments in
ties of the resulting glass products: the contact with air, it has a reflective, fire- the building industry. [7]
“blown cylinder sheet glass” and the polished surface finish with a relatively
“crown glass” processes. high optical quality. However, the produc- Initially, it was not the architects who took
In the “blown cylinder sheet glass” pro- tion process often leaves linear distortions architecture into the modern age, but
cess a bulb of glass is blown into a cylin- in the glass. This flaw was overcome by rather engineers and planners from so-
drical vessel with walls of minimum thick- the Englishman Alastair Pilkington, who in called non-artistic disciplines [8]. The
ness. Once it has cooled, both ends are 1959 patented his method that still repre- planning of larger, purely functional,
cut off and the cylinder is slit along its sents the state of the art in flat glass pro- building tasks called for a vision that far
length before it is rolled flat in the flatting duction – the “float glass method” [5]. In exceeded that of the past and solutions
furnace. However, the contact with the this process the glass melt floats on a whose radical expedience departed from
furnace leaves blemishes on the glass bath of liquid tin owing to its lower density the history of building in both aesthetic
surface. and forms a flat layer of glass of constant and constructional terms. The new forms
The “crown glass” process exploits the thickness. The horizontal, endless ribbon of construction included sheds over rail-
centrifugal forces that ensue due to fast of glass leaving the bath of tin is of an way stations in which the smoke from the
rotation of a blown glass bulb that is open extremely high quality (p. 12, Fig. 1). locomotives could disperse, and numer-
at one point. Glass produced in this way ous bridges with spans that had never
has a fire-polished surface finish. The Architecture and engineering been seen before. At the same time, the
smaller pane dimensions possible com- The development of the use of glass in roofs to market halls, shopping arcades
pared to the blown cylinder sheet glass building has also been affected by progress and other structures appeared to cele-
method were compensated for by the in other scientific and technical fields. The brate the symbiosis of iron and glass.
better optical quality of the finished glass reason for this can be found in the manu-
product. facture and finishing of the glass, but also Whereas in the Gothic age glass helped
But the two methods described above in the use of this brittle building material to achieve the desire for brightness and
could not satisfy the high demands that in conjunction with other, ductile materials. colour in church interiors, in the early 19th
large-format mirrors had to meet. In 1688, During the Gothic period, building tech- century it was the growing popularity of
in the light of this demand, the French- nology had reached a point where large exotic plants and their need for light and
man Lucas de Nehou invented the cast- openings in walls were possible for the warmth that had a fundamental and last-
ing and rolling method in which the vis- first time [6]. A fine network of iron frames ing effect on architecture. Engineers opti-
cous glass melt is poured onto a metal formed the supporting construction for mised the building envelopes of many
table and rolled flat [3]. But the subsequent the relatively small, often coloured, trans- glasshouses, conservatories and oran-
time-consuming grinding and polishing lucent, diaphanous glass panes. geries to ensure maximum light transmit-
treatment plus a coating turned the cheap But the greatest technological advance tance. They were glazed from top to bot-
8
Introduction
2 3 4
tom; the shapes of some of them traced glass in building experienced a new hey- for architectural or structural reasons. The
the trajectory of the sun across the sky so day, especially for industrial and office use of suitable adhesives with structural
that the incidence of the sunlight on the buildings, which were given large win- properties – in the automotive industry
glass was always perpendicular. The dows and glass facades. This was due to playing a part in overall stiffness since the
curved forms with their uniform bending the new manufacturing and finishing 1970s – will also play an ever more signi-
radii represented a sensible compromise methods plus an architectural development ficant role in the building industry. There-
between the ideal structural line and the we now call the Modern Movement. The fore, progress in science and technology
practicalities of industrial prefabrication. next major change came with the oil crisis today and in the future will permit the
Glasshouses not only revolutionised of the 1970s, which forced the building design of pioneering glass projects despite
architecture, they also laid the foundation industry into an energy-efficiency rethink ever more stringent safety requirements.
stone for the use of glass as a structural concerning the use of glass products
element. For the first time in the history of [10]. This resulted in systematic research
1 A masterpiece of glass-and-iron construction:
building, panes of glass were used on a into building physics relationships and
the Palm House at the Royal Botanic Gardens in
larger scale not only as an infill material led to the development of special func- Kew near London (GB), 1848, Richard Turner
but also as a stabilising component. For tional glasses. The rising cost of energy and Decimus Burton
2 P hotovoltaic panels in the cavity between the panes
example, in 1827 John Claudius Loudon together with the increasing awareness of of an insulating glass facade (left) and individually
reported on his Palm House at Bretton the need for sustainable forms of construc- controllable glass louvres for redirecting the light
(right), Tobias Grau company building, Rellingen
Hall in Yorkshire thus: “When the ironwork tion without depleting resources have
(D), 2001, BRT Architekten
was put up, before it was glazed, the seen the rise of specialised facades since 3 T est panel of a type of dichroic glass for use as a
slightest wind put the whole of it in motion the 1980s. Their varying, frequently multi- facade element, e.g. in combination with photovoltaic
panels
from the base to the summit … As soon layer constructions, sometimes with con- 4 T inted glass used on the combined police and fire
as the glass was put in, however, it was trollable functional components, are station for the government district in Berlin (D), 2004,
sauerbruch hutton architekten
found to become perfectly firm and intended to overcome overheating in sum-
strong” [9]. Another fundamental concept mer and reduce energy losses in winter.
of the modern use of glass in building
was already visible in British glasshouses Current research is increasingly concerned
of that time: the mesh-like glass-and-iron with hybrid products in which several
constructions remained stable even if tasks are combined directly in one com-
several panes were broken. The fact that ponent. In the case of facades, for exam-
many of these structures were not intended ple, experiments are being carried out on
to be permanently occupied by people – curtain walls with glass photovoltaic panels,
therefore allowing a lower factor of safety which can make an active contribution to
to be assumed – had a positive effect on energy needs, or passive glass loadbear-
their design. With their widespread renun- ing panel laminates (Figs. 2 and 3). When
ciation of historicising applications, great glass is needed only for the external pro-
delicacy, overwhelming impression of tective function and transparency is not a
transparency and use of structurally requirement, printed or tinted glass is
effective panes of glass (in some instances often an option (Fig. 4). The development
curved), the aesthetics and construction of light-redirecting glass louvres exploits
of glasshouses – in particular the Palm the optical properties of glass. On a con-
House at the Royal botanic Gardens in structional level, research is being carried [1] Glocker, 1992, p. 25ff.
[2] ibid., p. 76
Kew near London (Fig. 1) – in some cases out into combinations of glass and other, [3] ibid., p. 80f.
even exceeded those of that architectural in some cases new, ductile mater ials, e.g. [4] ibid., p.16
[5] ibid., p. 83ff.
icon of the 19th century, the Crystal Palace glass fibre-reinforced plastics. The aim
[6] Kohlmeyer, 1998, p. 82
in London, which was designed by Joseph here is to exploit the respective advantages [7] Glocker, p. 93
Paxton for the first World Exposition of 1851. of each material. In addition, plastically [8] Baum, 2007, p. 185
[9] Loudon, 1833, p. 980
At the start of the 20th century the use of shaped glass is being increasingly used [10] Glocker, p. 94
9
