What assistance did you receive from Viridian?
Their people visited our office a number of times
and provided initial guidance on products and
a thermal assessment of the glass as well as
assistance with a number of window framing
details. They offered technical assistance to
support our design decisions and back-up support,
rather than just sales. We’ve had a very good
experience with Viridian for many years.
Given the extent and size of some of the glass
you’ve used, were there any issues with size,
weight, fabrication or cleaning?
Those concerns haven’t been a problem in the
past. The school has the exterior glass cleaned
quite regularly and it wasn’t an issue to fabricate or
install. We use a steel framing system that’s based
on a very typical 600mm module so we tend to
limit glass height to 600mm but use them in very
long horizontal planes. That’s meant we can be
very flexible with the glass sizing module.
Modernist School
There are also those jewel, display-case like
shop-windows within the corridors which are an
almost ephemeral glass layer. Do they perform
another role?
They really link the old and new and the focus of
laboratories to the wider building user. They are
like jewel-cases and places to stimulate wonder
and represent a level of curiosity and investigation
that occurs within the rooms themselves, so those
glass shelves are very important ‘miniatures’ of
the building.
The art studio on the eastern end enjoys a
remarkable quality of light.
It does. It opens to the east and south and apart
from very early morning, the studio is filled with
a soft painter’s light. That indirect light fills the
studio which is kept deliberately open with the
mezzanine.