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Glass safety takes center stage

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Glass safety takes center stage

Glass safety takes center stage

Glass is a beautiful architectural and decorating surface. Because ordinary glass shatters into razor-sharp shards, glass safety is a primary concern. Some dramatic demonstrations of glass safety made the news last week, as China’s Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon bridge, perched more than 1,000 feet above the ground, is prepared for its grand opening.

Glass safety on display

Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge
Volunteers lined the 1,400 meter-long Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon glass bottom bridge, which is nearing its Grand Opening. As the somewhat nervous spectators looked on, one of the bridge’s glass panels was smashed with a sledgehammer, mostly to no avail. The top panel of the glass was cracked, but after more than a dozen other blows rained down on the bridge’s surface, the bottom two glass layers of the bridge stayed quite intact. In addition to suffering abuse by the sledgehammer, the bridge operators drove a 15-ton truck across the span, and allowed 25 brave tourists to jump on the cracked glass panel, all with no ill results. The structure is rated to hold 800 tourists at a time. The bridge held the demonstration to prove the safety of the structure, which will open to tourists in July.

University of North Dakota Ralph Engelstad Arena
Over the summer, the University of North Dakota will enhance the safety of the glass and boards at the university’s Ralph Engelstad Arena. The arena will install new safety glass around the ice surface, and will also take steps to increase the safety of the rink’s dasher boards. The new glass panels are actually made from acrylic and will flex when a player comes in contact with them. The flex is important in preventing serious physical injuries to players. In addition to adding flexible glass, the arena will add a new dasher board system, which will also flex when players make contact with it. A soft, rubberized cap on top of the dashers will also reduce the possibility of serious injury resulting from player contact. More than 90% of NHL arenas employ the same glass safety systems.

Liverpool University
Romag, a UK glass manufacturer has completed the installation of 3 interior pedestrian bridges for Liverpool University’s Materials Innovation Factory, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2016. Romag is one of the UK’s largest suppliers of laminated architectural glass, and delivered the walkways fully glazed, which reduced the complexity of the installation process.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a great addition to interior glass designs, and works on all types of glass, as well as acrylic and Plexiglas;™. If you’re looking for inspiration for a glass project, please view the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Sarah Williams, via FreeImages.com

Iconic Glass Structures – Farnsworth House

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Iconic Glass Structures – Farnsworth House

Iconic Glass Structures – Farnsworth House

Periodically, we take a look at iconic glass structures. Today, we look at the Farnsworth House in Plano, IL. The Farnsworth House was designed in 1945 by Mies van der Rohe, but the house was not actually constructed until 1951. Between its design and construction, a model of the house was used as an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Glass and steel characteristic of modernism

The Farnsworth House was commissioned by Dr. Edith Farnsworth, for whom the house is named. The house, which appears to float on a was used as a private residence, until it was purchased in 2003 jointly by two historic preservation groups. The house currently operates as a museum.

Mies van der Rohe was a German-American architect and is considered one of the founders of the modern architecture movement. He strove to create buildings that minimized the structural framework in order to improve the transition between the structure and its surroundings. Mies van der Rohe’s designs often incorporated glass and steel. The Farnsworth House has no interior walls, but it does have structures in the space that imply distinct areas. It also has full length draperies that provide privacy when desired.

The modernist movement followed the conclusion of World War I. Following the war, traditional classical architecture in Europe was unpopular because many people saw it as a reflection of Europe’s faltering class-based societies. Designers were looking for a style that complemented the industrial character of 20th century life, and the modernist style took root.

By the late 1930’s, Mies van der Rohe, who was the last director of the Bauhaus, closed it on the recommendation of the school’s faculty. The Nazis, who had risen to power in Germany, found that the Bauhaus was not sufficiently “German” and made it very difficult for the school to continue. Mies van der Rohe migrated to the United States and took commissions in the western United States and Chicago, where he was the head of the School of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Many of Mies van der Rohe’s works incorporate glass liberally, including Crown Hall on the IIT campus; IBM Plaza in Chicago; 860-880 Lakeshore Drive in Chicago; the Chicago Federal Center; the Seagram building in New York City, and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.

If you’d like some inspiration for your glass decorating projects, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: jalbertgagnier, via Flickr.com

Bird friendly building design a priority

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Making bird-friendly building design a priority

Making bird-friendly building design a priority

In the last three decades, glass building designs have achieved a popularity never before seen. Thanks to improvements in glass and glass coatings, glass has become a standard component of energy efficient building designs. But the use of glass in architecture comes with a price, and groups like the Audubon Society and other nature advocates, the adoption of bird friendly building design could significantly reduce bird mortality.

Bird friendly building design can reduce bird deaths

The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) attributes the death of hundreds of millions of birds in the United States annually to glass building design. According to ABC, collisions with glass are the second largest source of bird mortality, behind predation.

Just as glass is transparent to human beings and other animals, it’s also transparent to birds. Humans have learned to detect the presence of glass through subtle visual clues like reflections, dirt and window frame construction. Because of the way a bird’s eye works, birds cannot interpret these clues correctly and do not realize that a window is not an open space.

For the most part, birds are daytime feeders, but what many people don’t know is that birds migrate at night. While the vast majority of collisions with buildings occur during the day, nighttime artificial lighting interferes with a bird’s ability to navigate at night, and can cause changes in birds’ migratory patterns and habits.

In 2011, the US Green Building Council (USGBC) added bird friendly building design guidelines. The standard requires building designers to quantify the threat level a design poses to birds, taking into account the building’s construction materials and design details.

Bird friendly building design takes into account such elements of glass as its transparency and reflectivity. It also measures the impact of landscaping around the building that may inadvertently draw birds into close proximity with glass. Tall glass buildings pose a particular problem for birds because they reflect open sky and distant landscaping. Since birds cannot detect the difference between actual open sky and a reflection of open sky, tall glass buildings tend to cause a higher proportion of fatal bird collisions.

The principles of bird friendly building design include minimizing the use of glass; placing glass behind screens or lattice work that helps birds identify solid surfaces; and the use of netting, screens, grilles, shutters and exterior shades. Other techniques, such as the use of angled glass. UV-patterned glass, opaque or translucent glass, or silk screened patterns on glass can also help birds detect glass.

How well can these solutions work? A study done on the glass-and-steel Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City in 2009 showed that the building had one of the highest bird mortality rates in the city. Following a 2014 redesign that took bird mortality into account, bird mortality has been reduced there by more than 90%.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is ideal for creating bird friendly opaque and translucent glass. In addition, Glassprimer™ glass surface molecular activator can help create permanent bonds between ink and glass. If you’d like more information about Glassprimer™ products, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Tim Hickok, via Flickr.com

Could glass have a role in concrete?

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Could glass have a role in concrete?

Could glass have a role in concrete?

Sometimes, people use the words “cement” and “concrete” interchangeably, but in reality, cement is a component of concrete. Concrete is a combination of aggregate (small stones) and liquid cement that cures or hardens over time. The cement binds the aggregate together and makes what appears to be a uniform surface.

Glass powder could be used as a pozzolan

In cement production, additives (called pozzolans) are combined with the mixture to improve the performance of the cement or give it more desirable qualities. Typically, pozzolans are silica-based or aluminum-based. Pozzolans have been used for thousands of years to improve the performance of cement. In fact, pozzolans of volcanic origin have been found in cements made in ancient Crete and Rome.

Today, pozzolans can be natural or synthetic. Two common pozzolans are fly ash, a by-product of burned coal, and silica fume, a by-product of silica smelting. Coal-fired power plants are a major source of fly ash, but fly ash is becoming scarcer as more coal-fired power plants either shut down or convert to natural gas.

Engineering students at the City College of New York (CCNY) have been experimenting with glass powder as a replacement pozzolan for fly ash. The high silica content of glass gives it a high potential. The researchers used glass powder from colored glass that had no recycling value. Although glass is infinitely recyclable, some glass pieces are too small to recycle, and colored glass must be matched with similarly colored glass before being recycled.

Used as a pozzolan, glass powder has some interesting advantages. The cement production process generates CO2, which is released into the air. Substituting glass powder for fly ash reduces the CO2 emissions associated with cement production.

One question about the use of glass powder as a pozzolan is strength. What impact will the use of glass have on the finished product? The researchers have teamed up with the New York City Department of Design and Construction to test the substitute in action. In May, the Department laid down some concrete sidewalk in South Jamaica, NY that uses the new glass-based cement. The City and the researchers will observe the performance of the concrete over time.

CCNY researchers aren’t the only ones looking at the material strength of glass in cement. A research team from the University of British Columbia is experimenting with the combination of polymers, fly ash and glass powder as a potential replacement for some volume of aggregate materials in concrete. The team has determined that it may be able to replace as much as 25% of the aggregate with the glass powder mixture.

Innovative uses for glass can help keep the material out of landfills, even when recycling it back into container glass is no longer an option. We’re not sure what the decorating value of glass powder is, but if you’re considering working with larger pieces of glass and want some inspiration, please check out the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Hideya Hamano, via Flickr.com

German researchers make liquid glass

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German researchers make liquid glass

German researchers make liquid glass

On the surface, liquid glass doesn’t seem like a major advance. After all, during the standard glass-making process, the silica mixture is molten. In its molten state, the glass mixture is about 2,700° F. Molten glass is shaped, and then cooled to achieve its hardened structure.

Liquid glass hybrid reduces to solid glass

German researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have developed a free-flowing glass-plastic hybrid material that can be formed at room temperature. Once formed, the material can be cured using light. The cured solid can be heated and compressed to remove the plastic. The remaining object is chemically and structurally identical to commercial glass.

Soft molds can be made of any object using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The molds can then be used to shape the liquid glass. Engineers can use this process to make rapid prototypes of objects from glass. The process isn’t limited to making large objects. Scientists can also make complex objects measured in micrometers using this glass prototyping process.

The nanostructure of glass is what allows specially engineered coatings like Glassprimer™ glass paint to work. Glassprimer™ glass paint is designed to alter the nanosurface of glass, creating a permanent bond with the glass structure. As a glass coating, Glassprimer™ is highly UV-resistant, which means it won’t fade or delaminate, even in direct sunlight.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is also guaranteed to last for years when applied according to the warranty instructions. Glassprimer™ glass paint can be used safely in tough environments like kitchens and bathrooms. It’s also durable enough to be used in commercial decorating applications.

Glassprimer glass paint can be color-matched to any major paint manufacturer’s color palette, which means you can use Glassprimer™ glass paint on glass and Plexiglas™ surfaces, and be confident that it will match the latex paints on your walls and ceilings.

If you’d like more information about decorating with Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Dave, via Flickr.com

Glass Dress A Fashion Week Hit

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Glass Dress A Fashion Week Hit

Glass Dress A Fashion Week Hit

Dion Lee, an Australian fashion designer brought a glass dress to last month’s Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Australia 2016. The dress that Lee sent down the runway wasn’t what he originally had in mind. He’d originally wanted the A-line shift to be longer, but thought that a longer dress would prove too challenging for the model. The dress, which was made from fishing line and Swarovski crystals, topped the scales at a whopping 33 pounds! Making the dress longer would also have made it heavier – possibly too heavy to wear.
How are glass crystals made?
Chances are that you’ve seen crystal, but you may not know what distinguishes crystal from glass. Ordinary glass is made from silica, lime and soda. That’s the most common basic “recipe” for glass – sometimes called soda-lime glass. Soda-lime glass accounts for about 90% of the glass that’s made today.

Crystal is similar to glass, but the “recipe” is a slight variation. Crystal – also known as “lead crystal” – is made from silica, lead oxide, soda or potash. It can also contain other elements. For better or worse, lead has long been prized for its durability, and its ability to make other things (including paint and glass) more durable. In the United States, the “crystal” label is given to glass that has a lead content of at least 1%. European standards for crystal are much higher. To earn the designation of crystal in Europe, glass must have a lead content of 10%-30%.

Crystal is used primarily for drinking glasses and decorative glass. Lead crystal is a good decorative medium because lead changes the working time and temperature of glass. Ordinary glass needs to be heated to a certain temperature, and can only be worked for a short time before it cools too much to remain pliable.

When lead oxide is added to glass, it not only lowers the temperature to which the glass must be heated, but also it extends the amount of “working time” of the molten glass. A longer working time means that designers have a longer period of time to make more intricate, more decorative glass pieces.

One effect of the longer working time of leaded crystal is that the resulting pieces are thinner than ordinary glass. Thinness comes at a price, however. Leaded crystal is more prone to breakage and surface damage. Thin doesn’t mean lightweight, though. Crystal is often heavier than similarly sized soda-lime glass, thanks to the weight of the lead inside.

If you’d like more information about decorating with glass, please check out the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Liz West, via Flickr.com

Printed glass tiles and shower doors

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Printed glass tiles and shower doors

Printed glass tiles and shower doors

One of the newest decorating trends is the use of printed glass tiles and shower doors. Printing on glass allows photorealistic images to be deposited on glass surfaces. Unlike backpainted glass, where color or images are applied to the back side of transparent glass, glass printing takes place on the surface of the glass.

Printed glass offers residential, commercial options

UV inkjet printing offers some exciting options, not just for decorating but also for commercial applications. One of the challenges of printing on glass is that printed inks are typically not UV-resistant. When exposed to direct sunlight, the inks will fade. This makes using printed glass a challenge in both commercial and residential settings because it affects the longevity of the printed glass.

Glassprimer™ makes a specialty primer for UV-inkjet printing that extends to UV-inkjet printing the permanent bond that Glassprimer™ glass paint is famous for. With the Glassprimer™ glass surface molecular activator, inks can permanently bond to the glass surface, improving the longevity, durability and vibrancy of the finished product.

Image stability and durability means that you can decorate surfaces in your home or interior commercial space with printed glass. Printed glass tiles, shower doors and backsplashes will create an innovative and completely customized appearance, whether in the residential or commercial setting.

Printed glass in the commercial setting offers new opportunities to make branding impressions. Commercially, printed glass would work well in fitness facilities, restaurants, event venues and retail spaces. In addition to being eye-catching, printed glass is less expensive than other durable architectural materials and can be cleaned and sanitized easily. Glassprimer™ glass surface molecular activator works on any type of glass, so it could be used on ordinary plate glass, float glass or even rolled glass.

In a residential setting, printed glass opens new decorating possibilities by allowing the homeowner to incorporate photorealistic art and design in any space in the home. If you would like more information about Glassprimer™’s glass surface molecular activator, please visit our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass surface molecular activator, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Sprinz

Why glass is the new go-to building material

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Why glass is the new go-to building material

Why glass is the new go-to building material

The market for flat glass has grown steadily, and is expected to hit nearly 85 million metric tons by 2020. Glass is widely used in a number of industries, including construction (for both residential and commercial buildings), new and replacement windows, the automotive industry, and more recently, alternative energy.

Glass goes from high gloss to high performance

While the number of buildings with glass exteriors has grown substantially since the 1970’s, glass is fast becoming the new rising star in both energy efficiency and alternative energy. Demands for low-emissivity glass, self-cleaning glass and smart glass have all increased substantially.

The ability to control the admission of UV- and infrared light plays an important role in improving the energy efficiency of interior spaces and entire buildings. The use of specially formulated architectural glass will only increase as the pressure to become more energy-efficient increases.

It’s also making waves in interior design because it transmits natural light so well, offers a premium decorating surface and is environmentally friendly. Specialized coatings can also increase the energy-efficiency and performance of ordinary glass. For example, Glassprimer™ glass paint offers superior UV-resistance and can be matched to virtually any color in any major paint manufacturer’s palette.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is specially formulated to create a permanent bond with the glass surface. Once cured, it will not delaminate, peel, crack or fade, even under harsh conditions. Glassprimer™ glass paint can be used to create special frosted effects on glass. True frosted glass is created by etching or sandblasting, which microscopically damages the surface of the glass. Glassprimer™ glass paint can create a frosted effect without damaging the glass. In addition, any color can be used to create “frosted” glass. True frosted glass isn’t colored, unless the glass itself is also colored.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is ideal for creating backpainted surfaces, and it’s more economical per square foot than colored or frosted glass. If you’d like more information about decorating with Glassprimer™ glass paint, please check out the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Maja Fabczak, via FreeImages.com

Iconic Glass Structures – KAIT Workshop

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Iconic Glass Structures – KIT Workshop

Iconic Glass Structures – KIT Workshop

When Japanese architect Junya Ishigami set out to design a news space at the Kanagawa Institute of Technology, he wanted a design that was inspired by nature. What he came up with is an open plan building that’s about 2,000 square meters in area. The glass and steel KAIT Workshop contains no interior walls, and the roof is supported quite literally by a forest of supports.

Glass blurs the boundaries of the space

The 305 supports, which are all unique in size and angle, evoke a forest, which is exactly what Ishigami was going for. The school wanted to build a space that students and the public could use to work on individual projects. Because the space was not intended for any specific purpose, its interior needed to be highly flexible, and able to be transformed rapidly, based on the users’ immediate needs.

The final design of the building was inspired by the ambiguity found in natural forests. Upon close inspection, forests are not uniform arrangements of trees, but instead feature random, self-initiated placements of trees of all sizes and shapes. Open spaces combine with tightly clustered growth to form what appears to be a single, definable unit. The borders between open and closed spaces in the forest is ambiguous, at best. This is what Ishigami was aiming for in the building’s design.

The structure of the building is steel, and the outside walls are made of glass. The building was not designed with earthquake resistance in mind. The building is built on a concrete-and-bituminous foundation. The glass walls use the visually striking foundation to blur the distinction between interior and exterior space. The roof combines steel and glass to admit as much natural light as possible.

The interior of the building is stocked with chairs, tables and workspaces, which students can use and reconfigure as needed. The interior design of the building is meant to challenge the distinction between the building’s “local” spaces and its universal space.

If you’re looking for inspiration for a glass decorating project, please check out the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Maurizio Muccicola, via Flickr.com

Falling glass incidents dot the news

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Falling glass incidents dot the news

The Marion Building (middle) recently lost one of its windows.

The month of May was unkind to glass windows in at least four different buildings. Reports of falling glass came in from Augusta, South Bend, London and Chennai. The four separate incidents were all ruled accidents. With the exception of the incident in Chennai, the buildings were vacant or under construction at the time of the accidents.

Falling glass is an anomaly

Let’s take a look at what happened.
Augusta, GA. Glass from the Marion Building, one of the oldest buildings in downtown Augusta, came crashing down on a parked car, and on the sidewalk below the building. Falling glass damaged a parked car, and narrowly missed pedestrians on the street. According to witnesses, a glass window was blown from the building on an exceptionally windy day. The building is currently vacant, and according to the owner, he is in the process of selling the building. Officials from the city’s building department said that they would inspect the rest of the windows in the building for loose window glass. No one was injured in the accident.

South Bend. Glass panels being removed by a contractor fell from the 25th floor of the former Chase Tower in South Bend, IN. The falling panels struck the adjacent Tower Building, breaking at least three windows in that building. According to the contractor and witness reports, a gust of wind lifted the loose panels and sent them tumbling. Two downtown South Bend streets were closed while the remainder of the work was completed.

London. A pedestrian was injured by a falling 4-ft glass panel in London. The glass fell from a structure that was being renovated at the time of the accident. The pedestrian, who required a blood transfusion as the result of the accident, suffered a head injury and was hospitalized overnight for observation. She is expected to make a full recovery.

Chennai. Glass ceiling panels fell from the Chennai Airport in Chennai, India. The airport, which opened three years ago, has been plagued by a series of incidents involving falling glass, granite and other building materials. Chennai Airport is the third-busiest airport in India. According to authorities, a thorough inspection of the building was completed and changes in building maintenance routines were suggested to avoid future accidents. No one was injured in the most recent incident.

In most applications, glass is perfectly safe! Glass used as a decorating or architectural surface in the home can be mounted easily, safely and securely using silicone adhesives or mirror mastic. Glass coatings like Glassprimer™ glass paint will hide adhesives applied to the back of the glass and will not react with the adhesives over time. That means your backpainted glass installation will look great for years.

If you’d like more information about decorating with glass, or proper adhesive advice, please check out the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Boston Public Library , via Flickr.com