Glass Construction Manual, Hardly any other building material can match the current immense popularity of glass among architects and engineers. Glass has witnessed a long period of evolution in architecture – from the solid, plain wall to the see-through and light-permeable outer skin. A material that gives us the chance to erect transparent, open and seemingly weightless buildings alters the correlation between interior and exterior, the relationship between humankind, space, light and nature. It is not difficult to understand why glass has such a high priority as an architectural medium. The property of being able to “capture” the warmth of the sun within the building was still a major problem at the beginning of the 20th century as new structural solutions were being
explored, and the desire arose to reach beyond the confining walls of our constructions. Today, we have many many different options available for the intelligent control and admission of the right amount of light and heat into our buildings. And glass is increasingly being used as a loadbearing element by the structural engineer – considerably reducing reducing the proportion of bulky supporting construction. The latest thin-film
coatings make it possible to have low-emission and solar-control glasses that also permit optimum transparency.
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Authors
Christian Schittich Dipl.-Ing., architect, Chief Editor of the journal Detail, Munich Gerald Staib Prof. Dipl.-Ing., freelance architect, Chair of Building Structures & Design, Dresden University of Technology Dieter Balkow Dipl.-Ing., publicly appointed independent expert for glass in buildings & daylighting
Director of the Swiss Institute for Glass in Building, Zurich Matthias Schuler Dipl.-Ing., Managing Partner of Transsolar Energietechnik, Stuttgart Werner Sobek Prof. Dr.-Ing., Head of the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design, University of Stuttgar