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What else does glazing help you achieve here?
There are two halves to the building – the top and
bottom – and so to express that we didn’t want
anything connecting the two halves. In order to provide
a transparent void separating the two parts, glass is
obviously the perfect material. As well as that, where
you walk out towards the reserve is completely glass
with an electric door and a big piece of glass facing
the entry side so in addition to a continuous ribbon
around the building, glass fills in those quite large
voids front and back.
Any thoughts about the way you would work with glass
now that you might not have considered 20 years ago?
We look at it very differently now with new environmental
standards, particularly in double-glazing. We also try to
express its beauty like in this case where it’s just channel
glazing with glass in a slender steel frame, rather than just
putting it into a glazing rebate of chunky aluminium frame.
We’re very interested in that elegance and the crispness of
large double glazed sheets but also understanding the
nature of the material and proportions. In this case they
are very long pieces, which is tricky for handling onsite,
so you have to understand those imperatives.
What does your main contact with Viridian involve?
When we need advice on coatings and reflectivity and
environmental factors. We also need Viridian’s advice on
thermal issues. Generally structural engineers will
provide advice on thicknesses and wind-load and the like.
We need to know from Viridian about new technologies
in high-performance glass and we are finding that we
need that advice more and more for environmental
sustainability imperatives.
“We’re very interested in that
elegance and the crispness
of large double glazed sheets
but also understanding the
nature of the material and
proportions.”
PHILIP HARMER, ARCHITECT