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All glass kitchens gain momentum

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All glass kitchens gain momentum

All glass kitchens gain momentum

Glass is a natural choice for use in the kitchen. It’s tough, easy to clean, impervious to bacteria, and stands up to harsh cleaners. And while its original form is usually transparent, products like Glassprimer™ glass paint make it possible to add a rainbow of color to glass. Some designers have taken glass in the kitchen to a new level by designing all glass kitchens.

What does an all glass kitchen look like

The most recent design showing of an all glass kitchen was at the Venice Architectural Biennale 2016 by Dutch design firm MVRDV. Their rationale for the transparent glass kitchen is simple. According to MVRDV, the all glass kitchen design “…hopes to develop better cuisine by making the processes that go on in our kitchens physically transparent; whether it be food choice, food care, kitchen care, waste choices or the preparation of food itself.”

The Infinity Kitchen was designed by architect Kengo Kuma and media artist Au Yeung Ying Chai, and will be on display until 30th September 2016 in Università IUAV di Venezia Ca’tron. The design is entirely transparent. From cabinets to food preparation surfaces, shelves and cupboards, everything in the kitchen is entirely visible.

MVRDV has also recently completed an all-glass office in Hong Kong, which was scheduled to open on June 1. The office includes all glass interiors, furniture and equipment.

The idea of an all glass kitchen isn’t new. An Italian design firm – Valcucine – has been working with glass as a primary material for kitchens for about a decade. Their goal, in working with glass, was to design and produce a 100% recyclable kitchen.

Valcucine takes a slightly different approach to working with glass in the kitchen. Rather than working with a completely transparent product, the company’s glass line employs striking colors to bring each glass kitchen to life. In addition to being recyclable, Valcucine took great pains to make their product sustainable and environmentally friendly. The Valcucine glass cabinets are shipped unconstructed, which allows the panels to lay flat for shipping, and reduces the size of the shipping container required to ship each piece.

If you’d like to find more all glass decorating 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: Valcucine

Recycling glass? Not so much in cities

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Recycling glass? Not so much in cities

Recycling glass? Not so much in cities

Earlier this year, Houston joined the growing list of cities that no longer offers curbside recycling for container glass. It seems shocking because we’ve always been told that recycling glass is easy and environmentally conscious. It is, but why are cities like Houston, Marietta GA, Harrisburg, PA, Santa Fe, NM, Baton Rouge, LA and Charleston, SC turning away from collecting glass for recycling?

Recycling glass is problematic, costly

The reasons vary, but it all comes down to money. According to Pratt Industries, the recycler for Spartanburg and Greenville counties in South Carolina, glass is the most costly item to recycle and excluding glass from the recycling stream frees up space in the company’s storage and processing facilities for other recyclable materials.

The National Waste and Recycling Association says that the sorting requirements of glass, combined with its weight and other factors make glass the most likely candidate for elimination from recycling programs. Since glass does not break down or create any toxic byproducts, it can sit safely in a landfill in favor of other less environmentally friendly materials.

Complicating the matter further is the issue of labels. Container glass is frequently labeled with paper-and-glue labels, which tends to foul the recycling stream and requires additional handling. In addition, glass breaks, making it dangerous to handle and sort.

Houston, which recently signed a two-year recycling disposal contract with Waste Management, almost abandoned recycling altogether, after difficult contract negotiations. The city was pressured by a significant budget shortfall, and the city administration was not initially able to come to terms it felt the city could afford. By streamlining the curbside recycling program – including the omission of glass – the city was able to find an arrangement that works.

Despite changes to the curbside recycling program, Houston is still in the glass recycling game. The city maintains collection points where residents who are interested in recycling glass can bring their containers. As the fourth largest city in the US, however, the loss of an easy curbside recycling program for glass means that as many as 25 tons of glass will now end up in Houston’s landfills instead of in a recycling program.

Further complicating the glass recycling picture is the fact that the bottom is dropping out of the market for many recycled materials, including glass. Not being able to find buyers means that slim profit margins on glass are in danger of turning into losses for recyclers, and no one is willing to take on a losing proposition.

In the mean time, gaps in municipal glass recycling programs are being filled by third-parties, although environmentalists and glass manufacturers alike worry that the stream of recyclable glass will diminish – pushing the cost of virgin glass higher and redirecting a material that is infinitely recyclable into the waste stream instead.

Glass is truly infinitely recyclable and reusable. If you’d like ideas for 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: Steven Goodwin, via FreeImages.com

Iconic Glass Structures: Louvre Pyramid in Paris

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Iconic Glass Structures: Louvre Pyramid in Paris

Iconic Glass Structures: Louvre Pyramid in Paris

If you’re planning to go to Paris before June 27, you should know that you won’t be able to see the iconic glass pyramid structure outside the world-famous Louvre Museum. While the museum is temporarily closed due to flooding, and art lovers fear for the safety of the Louvre’s priceless collection, the Glass Pyramid in front of the building is doing just fine. You just can’t see it.

The Museum invited Paris street artist JR to wrap the Glass Pyramid in the medium of his choice. JR took life-sized photograph of the Louvre, in black and white, and applied them to the front facing panel of the Glass Pyramid. With JR’s help, look directly at the Glass Pyramid and all you’ll see is the Louvre as it looked before the Pyramid’s arrival in 1984.

Glass Pyramid was designed by I.M. Pei

The Louvre Pyramid was commissioned in 1984 by then-President Francois Mitterrand, and was designed by world-renowned architect I.M. Pei. I.M. Pei is known for his architectural designs; he also designed the Kennedy Library in Boston, the Dallas City Hall, the Hancock Tower in Boston and the National Gallery East in Washington, D.C. The Glass Pyramid was created to address traffic flow problems at the Museum’s entrance, and sits on top of a welcoming lobby. The Glass Pyramid is the first structure to greet nearly 5 million visitors from around the world annually. The lobby underneath the Glass Pyramid is being renovated, in order to accommodate a growing number of visitors.

The Louvre itself started out as a medieval fortress, built in the 1200’s. In the 1400’s, it was converted to a royal palace, and in the mid-1500s, most of the original portion of the building was razed and rebuilt. The Glass Pyramid sits in front of the Cour Carrre, the oldest portion of the Museum, and the portion of the building that was replaced in the mid-1500s.

The number of glass panes is controversial. When the Glass Pyramid first opened, official Museum literature and news reports of the time said the piece had 666 panes of glass, a figure that was worked into Dan Brown’s fictional work The Da Vinci Code. The Museum later corrected the figure to 672. According to the designer, the Glass Pyramid has 689 glass panels that are shaped either like a rhombus or a triangle.

The number of panes of glass in the Glass Pyramid is far from the only controversy the structure has created. More than 30 years after its construction, the Glass Pyramid still invites passionate discussions about the combination of modern glass construction against a French Renaissance background, the cultural differences of modern France, the symbolism of a pyramid and of course, it’s cost to build (about USD$16M).

If you’d like to decorate glass, you don’t need to hire a Parisian street artist. Glassprimer™ glass paint can do the trick! If you’d like some inspiring ideas about decorating 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: Colin Cushman , via FreeImages.com

The latest glass bridge in China

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The latest glass bridge in China

Cliff-hanging walkways, Zhangjiajie, China

In yesterday’s post, we looked at the Jingdong Stone Forest Gorge and it’s new glass platform. Today, we’ll look at the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Bridge in Hunan Province in China. The bridge is still under construction, but it’s nearing its anticipated opening in July 2016. The bridge is 1,312 feet long and is perched a mere 984 feet above the ground. When it is opened, the bridge will lay claim to being the longest, highest glass bridge in the world.

Long span joins Zhangjiajie Glass Skyway

Construction delays have pushed back the opening of the bridge; originally, builders expected the span to open in 2015, but weather and other delays pushed back the grand opening until July. In addition to swings, the bridge will also host the longest bungee jump in the world.

The bridge was designed by Haim Dotan, an Israeli architect, and can accommodate 800 people at one time. Operators have also suggested that the bridge might provide a unique backdrop for fashion shows and other events. Admission to the bridge will set you back about USD$20, on top of the USD$18 it will cost to get you into the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Scenic Area, home to the soon-to-be-famous span.

To get the full effect of China’s glass bridge infatuation, you’ll also need to plan a trip to the nearby Zhangjiajie Tianmenshan Glass Skywalk, which is shorter, higher and narrower than the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Bridge. The Zhangjiajie Tianmenshan Glass Skywalk is about 5 miles away and about 1,000 meters in the air. (That’s about 3,300 feet.) It’s just 60 meters in length and a scant 1.5 meters across. It’s part of the Tianmen Mountain and is not part of the nearby Zhangjiajie National Park. If you decide to make that trip, as long as you’re on the mountain, check out the Tianmen Temple, the Cliff-Hanging Walkways and the Tianmen Cave.

We look forward to the grand opening of the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge. Until that time, if you need some glass-based lofty inspirations, check out the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: FT, via Flickr.com

China’s Love Affair with Glass Continues

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China's Love Affair with Glass Continues

Stone Forest

It seems as though China can’t get enough of glass. On May 1, the world’s largest glass-bottomed observation platform opened 1,300 feet above the Jingdong Stone Forest Gorge in the Pinggu District near Beijing. The platform is nearly 4,500 feet square and hangs 107 feet beyond the edge of a cliff in the gorge.

Home of glass platform already draws tourists

The Jingdong Stone Forest Gorge is already a popular tourist attraction and offers scenic views of colossal natural stone formations. The viewing platform is made primarily from glass and titanium. According to the curators of the site, this is the first time that lightweight titanium – typically used in the manufacturing of aircraft – has been used in the construction of a building.

The platform can also claim to be the “longest” glass observation deck in the world. Although it is circular in shape, the platform extends 107 feet beyond the wall of the cliff – a full 37 feet longer than the glass observation deck in use at the Grand Canyon.

Panels of glass that are about 5 feet high surround the open-air Jingdong platform, and visitors have been seen walking, exercising, sitting and lying down on the glass. While some tourists enjoy the daredevil nature of navigating the attraction, others find it virtually impossible to walk so high above the gorge.

Last year, tourists at the Yuntai Mountain Scenic Park were horrified to see a crack emerge in the 1,300 foot long glass walkway there. That walkway is 3,500 feet off the ground, and was closed immediately after the incident for repairs. One of the glass panels in the walkway was damaged when a sharp object fell on the panel and damaged it. No one was injured in the incident.

Other glass platforms and observation decks have been damaged similarly, including the one at the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) in Chicago. In 2014, the Willis Tower observation deck, which is an open-air surface suspended 103 stories above ground and offers a 360° view of the city, cracked while tourists were standing on it. The visitors were never in any danger; the Willis Tower observation deck is built to withstand 10,000 pounds of pressure without buckling.

In the next post, we’ll look at China’s newest glass suspension bridge, which is expected to open in July. In the mean time, if you’re looking for some glass 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: Rene Passet, via Flickr.com

Art glass factories facing EPA regulation

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Art glass factories facing EPA regulation

Art glass factories facing EPA regulation

More than a dozen art glass factories around the United States are coming under increased scrutiny from the Environmental Protection Agency, state and local regulators, after apparently running afoul of heavy-metal emission regulations earlier this year. Federal researchers with the United States Forestry Service discovered dangerously high levels of heavy metals in tree moss samples in the Portland, OR area. Additional investigation pinpointed the source of the heavy metals as the art glass factories in the area.

Glass makers not exempt from heavy metals emissions

Spectrum, of Woodinville, WA, has already announced that it will close its doors instead of attempting to comply with more restrictive emission regulations. Bullseye Glass in Portland is attempting to remain open, despite regulatory pressure and a production moratorium that has been imposed on the factory by the State of Oregon. A third Portland-based manufacturer, Uroboros, which has partnered with Spectrum on certain products, also says it will continue to manufacture and produce colored glass and glass colorants. The EPA is particularly concerned that the factories have been emitting vaporized cadmium into the air after the agency discovered that none of Portland’s glass factories had the requisite pollution control systems installed on their glass-melt furnaces.

The factories make agents used by glassmakers to produce colored glass. Additives, including lead, nickel, arsenic, cadmium and chromium, have become the subject of concern for regulators, and have been measured in significantly elevated levels in the soils around the factories. The EPA is also questioning state regulators and their interpretations of federal regulations, as well as their enforcement practices.

Initially, the factories thought they were exempt from more stringent regulations, but pressure on the state’s Department of Environmental Quality by the EPA and local residents has brought about a new understanding of federal emissions requirements. In addition, the EPA is reviewing emissions data from about 15 other art glass factories around the country that use similar production practices.

About half of the factories that are the subject of enhanced EPA scrutiny are located in the Midwest and on the East Coast. The remainder are clustered in Oregon and Washington State. The EPA has not yet concluded its investigation of the factories, but many glassmakers point out that their production processes do not violate federal laws.

Glassprimer™ glass paint provides an excellent alternative to colored glass. Glassprimer™ glass paint comes in a wide range of colors and creates a permanent bond with the glass surface. In addition, Glassprimer™ glass paint comes in both oil-based and water-based formulations. Our water-based formulation cleans up with water, and both formulations are low-odor, low-VOC compounds.

If you’d like more information about working 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: Kenn Kiser , via FreeImages.com

MIT researchers demo 3-D glass printing

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MIT Researchers demo 3-D glass printing

Photo credit: Steven Keating, MIT

3-D printing has risen to the forefront of prototyping and rapid manufacturing, but glass hasn’t worked out very well as a printing medium. Some systems can use powdered glass with certain 3-D printing techniques, but the finished product isn’t transparent like glass. Researchers at MIT have changed that, however, by demonstrating a new 3-D printing technique that uses molten glass to “print” a 3-dimensional object, layer by layer.

Glass printing could have architectural applications

The molten glass must leave the printing nozzle at a temperature that exceeds 1,000° C. To make sure the glass remains hot enough to work, the researchers developed a printer with multi-stage heating coils that keep the glass properly heated at each point of the production process. Once the glass has exited the printing nozzle, the object is built in a heated chamber that maintains a temperature just above the point where glass solidifies. By keeping the glass heated after printing, the researchers can control the cooling process, which allows the printed piece to cool gradually without breaking.

The printing nozzle is made from aluminum oxide. It can withstand the high temperatures and discourage the molten glass from sticking to it during production. Currently the researchers are working with soda-lime glass formulations, but in theory, the process could also be used to create tempered glass items. For a tempered printing process to be successful, the printer would have to be able to work with glass heated to a much higher temperature.

The process could also be used to create architectural glass with specific properties, like light transmission. Traditional float glass has smooth interior features, which allow light and solar radiation to be transmitted easily. A 3-D printed piece of glass could have internal features that control the transmission and distribution of light more effectively.

Don’t expect 3-D glass printing to move to the production stage anytime soon, though. According to MIT researchers, they want to work with different production techniques, including the addition of pressure to the molten glass stream to better control the flow, and give more precision to the resulting printed glass object.

At Glassprimer™, we don’t print glass, but we do provide the perfect coating for glass. If you’d like more information about decorating with glass paint, please check out the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

GlassFest Lights Up Corning

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GlassFest Lights Up Corning

GlassFest Lights Up Corning

What do you do to celebrate your town’s contributions to the glass industry? If you’re Corning, NY, you throw a four-day party known as GlassFest. GlassFest is in its 7th year and boasts all things glass. GlassFest took place this year from May 26-May 29 and featured hot glass shows, live music, food and fireworks.

GlassFest dedicated to glass arts

There were plenty of glass-blowing demonstrations, and thousands of visitors to watch some of the best glass artisans in the country show off their wares. In addition to glass artisans, visitors found plenty of pottery, jewelry and metalwork. And no street festival would be complete without an 8K run. With clear skies and temperatures in the 90s, the weather was just about perfect. Vendors from around the region commingled with food trucks, wineries, musicians and tourists to celebrate the industry that put Corning on the map.

One of the anchors of the festival is the Corning Glass Museum, which is open from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM daily. The museum has been in operation since 1951, when it was given as a gift to the people of the United States in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Corning Glass Works. Although the company is now known as Corning, Inc., the museum entertains 10s of thousands of visitors each year. But if you visit, you should know that it’s not the “Look-but-don’t-touch” kind of museum.

Instead, you’ll find plenty of interactive displays in the hands-on exhibits in the Innovation Center. You’ll also see lots of Hot Glass Shows, that both occupy museum space, and travel around the country. The Glass Lab is a traveling workshop for designers who want to experiment with glass. New glass makers can take courses at the museum, and researchers can find many Web-accessible resources through the Rakow Research Library – a library devoted to glass. You’ll also find more than 50,000 pieces of glass on display in the museums galleries, the newest of which boasts more than 26,000 square feet of display space.

Although this year’s GlassFest is already in the books, you can make your plans for next year’s event. (The dates have not yet been finalized.) If you’d like ideas for decorating glass, please check out the rest of our website. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Niklas Morberg, via Flickr.com

Glass strength could be doubled

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Glass strength could be doubled

Glass strength could be doubled

If someone asked you to make a list of “strong” materials, glass probably wouldn’t make the cut. We associate glass with breaking and fragility, mainly because we’ve all dropped a glass or two, with inevitable results. But researchers are making some surprising discoveries about glass strength and other qualities that just might change the way we think about glass.

New manufacturing process needed for better glass strength

Recent research conducted at Rice University showed that glass strength could be doubled if the glass production process were tweaked. There are few current applications for glass that couldn’t benefit from a little extra muscle. Stronger glass could mean better (and safer) windows, doors and windshields as well as tougher smartphone and tablet screens.

We think of glass as a solid because we usually encounter it in its solid form, but during production, glass is very much liquid. When glass is in its liquid form, the molecules in it have a random arrangement – the same as any other liquid. When glass solidifies, the molecules “harden” in this same random arrangement, unlike other solids, which usually have a more organized, crystalline pattern. This lack of an organized structure at the molecular level changes the strength of glass and explains why glass shatters and cracks randomly when it breaks. If glass molecules could be ordered when glass changes from a liquid to a solid state, the strength of the glass could be significantly improved.

Changing the way glass molecules behave actually requires more than a “tweak” to the glassmaking process. Today, most plate glass is made using the “float” method, which involves “floating” molten glass onto a bed of molten tin. By allowing the molten glass to cool slightly, the glass can be worked into specific thicknesses. Once the glass has achieved the desired thickness, it cools into the hardened glass we’re familiar with.

That approach cannot be used to line up the glass molecules into the crystalline structure needed for additional strength. A completely different process, more like the one used to deposit film layers on reflective glass, could theoretically be used to improve glass strength. Ultimately, all glass is breakable under the right conditions, but stronger glass could have a significant impact on the use of glass in architecture, electronics, automobiles and decorating.

For 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: Peter Marwitz, via FreeImages.com

Glass plays an important role in energy efficiency

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Glass plays a big role in energy efficiency

Glass plays a big role in energy efficiency

In yesterday’s post, we looked at energy efficiency and glass, and how technological advances in glass have given commercial interiors the edge in reducing energy consumption. Today’s post looks at the most recent energy efficiency developments in glass, and how modern coatings like Glassprimer™ glass paint can help conserve energy and improve comfort.

Glassprimer™ glass paint contributes to energy efficiency

In the late 1980s and early 1990’s, new research was aimed at developing dynamic glass – glass that could automatically change tint based on conditions, reduce heat build-up and reduce glare while still providing a high degree of light-transmission. Comfort and convenience were the primary drivers of glass technologies, even though a clear benefit was a reduction in energy consumption. By the mid-1990s, sales of low-e glass hadn’t changed much; if anything, they declined slightly.

Today, energy efficiency is a greater concern, and while low-e glass doesn’t dominate the residential market, more than half of commercial windows are low-e. The need for a significant amount of natural lighting in commercial spaces, combined with mandates to reduce energy consumption drive the commercial low-e market. Low-e glass is now combined with energy-efficient fabrication techniques and new materials and coatings to create highly efficient, highly functional windows.

Specialized glass coatings, like Glassprimer™ glass paint can also contribute to an increase in energy efficiency. Glassprimer™ glass paint offers exceptional UV-protection, which reduces heat build-up, discourages heat loss and resists peeling and fading over time. Glassprimer™ glass paint is also cost-effective. A single gallon of Glassprimer™ glass paint can cover about 265 square feet of glass. The paint can be used to achieve full coverage or partial coverage, and can be used to create a frosted effect.

The nanotechnology that underlies Glassprimer™ glass paint actually modifies the surface of the glass, creating a permanent bond with the glass. Being able to create this bond is key to delivering superior UV-protection and performance, even under the most challenging conditions.

Glassprimer™ glass paint works with any kind of glass. A window coated with Glassprimer™ glass paint will provide UV protection and reduce the build-up of heat while still preserving light transmission.

If you’d like more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint’s energy efficiency applications, please check out the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .
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Photo Credit: Hing-Cheung Li, via FreeImages.com