Architectural glass: beauty or eco-beast?

From an aesthetic point of view, architects and clients specify the interior and external glass for a new building. When it comes to structural integrity, performance and application, engineers rule. If the project requires an inordinate amount of glass, perhaps contractors or value engineers will weigh in with cost-effective alternatives. This is the reality of building in the Middle East, but at the end of the day, who trumps whom?

In the Middle East, does the architect’s opinion reign supreme? Or, are the value engineers the behind-the-scenes budgetary saviours when it comes to making decision on glass? Do building owners or developers really even care what goes where, as long as the building sells?

All of these questions beg one last, fundamental question: Is architectural glass a decision of functionality or aesthetics?

This much we know: architecture is about creating space. Architects design structures to be experienced. To remove the experiential element from a structure is to render it a sculpture rather than a piece of architecture.

Few materials are as directly responsible for influencing the way in which users experience a structure than glass. Whether its intent is form or function, the versatility of glass is unparalleled.

Middle East Architect caught up with building professionals around the world to talk about the importance of using the ‘right’ glass for the right project.

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Richard Wagner, architect at dxb lab describes an ideal scenario. “In an ideal nutshell, the architect specifies the type of glass, the engineer verifies that choice, the contractor builds it, and the developer sells a quality project as desired by the clients.”

It doesn’t take an astrophysicist to know that in Gulf architecture, things don’t often work that way. In a region where quality can quickly be supplanted by quantity, architects often struggle with contractors and value engineers convincing clients that using a less advanced product will have little influence on how the building looks or performs.

Thom Bohlen, chief technical officer at the Middle East Centre for Sustainable Development, understands the importance of consulting with qualified professionals when considering glass.

“Architects normally specify glazing for their buildings, but typically they get input from structural engineers, glazing contractors, glazing suppliers and, of course, from the green building consultant,” says Bohlen. “The appropriateness of the U-values of the system, transmittance factors and shading coefficients can all greatly affect energy consumption in buildings.”

All too often, however, developers or contractors in the Gulf decide on a type of glass or facade system depending on budget or preference of origin. Specialty engineers are consulted only in the most complex scenarios and architects are left voiceless in the great debate about money.