“We know how to make the biggest pieces of glass in the world for architectural use” Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, recently said this sentence during the speech regarding the new Apple Headquarters in Cupertino (California, USA).
Facade units get bigger and bigger every year. Some colleagues engineers have thought that cladding world has gone mad, but it is not true. Innovations are moving ahead. The market demands it.
Architecture is demanding larger pieces, such as Apple Store in Shanghai, where the height of every glass facade is approximately 12 meters.
The main benefits (among others) can be noticed immediately:
-Reduction of glass joints, improving watertightness and increasing light transmission.
-Reduction of supporting claddings.
-Improved load carriage behaviour.
Certainly, Apple has innovated using largest glass panes in their own worldwide stores.
Recently, it has been published that Apple is going to renovate the Cube store on Fifth Avenue in New York, removing the 90 glass panes by using just 15 larger ones.
Another clue concerning this architectural trend was found in the last Glasstech Düsseldorf in October 2010, you could see a huge insulated glass panel of 18 meters x 3,3 meters, manufactured by Henze-Glas from Hörden, Germany.
Source: renatocilento.blogspot.com
repost from www.renatocilento.com