Daylighting Details
Building on the edge of what is viable: In the last 20 years, architecture has conquered supporting constructions made of glass. One of its pioneers, Rob Nijsse from a Dutch engineering firm ABT, explains the achievements on the way to new glass architecture.
Glass has only been discovered by engineers as a building material for supporting constructions in the last few decades. The main reason for this is laminating technology. If glass breaks, it does so suddenly and completely – and this can be prevented by inserting an inter layer of lamination into multi-layer glass constructions.
Rob Nijsse reports on the consequences that this invention had for glass and how difficult it often is to implement innovations: We know that glass bridges and glass floors are technically feasible, however we are often mentally inhibited by them. Initially, glass supports were also only hesitantly accepted by constructors, as they feared guarantee claims if they should collapse. And the research into glass stilts is currently still in its infancy. Therefore Rob Nijsse believes there to be a lot of potential in this: “Will a glass column not be the utmost achievement in a structural application? Imagine high-rise buildings resting on mysteriously shining beams of light (bear in mind the immense potential bearing force of glass); a dream would have come true. The journey on the road to realise this has, however, only just begun.”
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