DETAIL English 5/2009

Glass is a fascinating building material with diverse, sometimes contrasting qualities: transparent, reflective or frosted, tough yet fragile. In recent decades tremendous advances have been made in glass technology. Bold architectural designs are now using glass to perform loadbearing functions and, thanks to the advent of sophisticated, largely invisible coatings, for climate control. Much innovative potential still remains to be tapped: engineers and architects, scientists at universities and in industry, and creative companies are coming up with astonishing new developments. Perhaps more so than with any other building material, advances in architectural applications for glass are emerging as a result of close cooperation between designers, experts from a range of scientific disciplines and the constructors.