Matter and surface

Glass

Historicglazing · pane · stained glass · vidrio (Spanish)

housingofficeretailschool

It is a transparent material made of molten sand that lets light and view through and blocks air and water.

Solves

Little natural light

What it solves

It gives daylight and view while the space stays closed. In the tropics it also lets heat in, so it calls for shade and ventilation.

Today

Place glass where light arrives without direct sun or protect it with eaves, sunshades or lattices. On west facades prefer solar control glass.

Common mistake

Covering entire facades with unshaded glass in the tropics, which forces cooling with air conditioning.

Tomorrow

Birds crash into glass that reflects trees and sky, so it is best to use glass with visible patterns or exterior screens near green areas. Waste glass goes back to the furnace as raw material.

Where it comes from

1Rome Roman Empire, early 1st century
The first window glass appears, cast in frames on sand.
2European glassmakers Europe, until the 19th century
Flat glass came from blown discs and later from opened cylinders, which limited the size of the panes.
3Float glass England, 1953 to 1957
Glass formed on molten tin made large, smooth and inexpensive panes possible.
4Coffee era San José, Costa Rica, 19th century
With the coffee boom, glass arrived in houses.

Masters

Lina Bo Bardi Glass House, São Paulo, Brazil, 1951
She enclosed the house with large glass panes and raised it among the trees of the Atlantic Forest. The glass erases the boundary between the living room and the forest.
Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa Glass Pavilion of the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, United States, 2006
They made almost all the walls of very clear curved glass, so that each space is seen through another. They take glass to be wall, route and light at once.

Sources

Also in Matter and surface

Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.