VISION Issue 21 | Page 8

8 VISION 21 — ARTGLASS A challenge for all developers is the volume of apartments flooding the market. How do you give your project the genuine signature, rather than applied logo? Is this a major consideration? It’s uppermost in our minds. Any development we work on demands a design with a distinctive difference to help with the marketing. We don’t rely purely on the external aesthetic so much as a combination of an exterior appeal fully supported by its quality interior fitout and internal ambience. Is this design more the introvert, or extrovert? A combination of both! The whole package is alive during daylight hours with that glass facade responding to the changing light and taking on a whole new appearance of an evening. The contemporary interiors are befitting of the area. What was behind your decision to provide this specific glass identity of patterned seraphic? The glass facade against a traditional fit, provides a very modern architectural aesthetic. It gives the distinctive contrast that respects the heritage building. The two read quite independently of each other, yet are not competing. In glass, there is the reflective element, but in this particular case, what we have chosen is to use glass as a cladding system, because the seraphic glass in this facade is not transparent. It’s essentially curtain wall? Yes it is. All the apartments have windows that are easy to access for light and ventilation and comprise a Viridian clear glass. That remains a constant throughout the building, yet the skin is very much a cutting edge system, derived from a commercial curtain wall application. WE WANTED A STRONG COUNTERPOINT TO COMPLEMENT THE OLD, HERITAGE BUILDING. GLASS IMMEDIATELY CAME TO MIND. Robert Ficarra, Architect