Scaling New Heights with Glass in Construction

The Shard, London – Europe's Tallest Building


The Shard has just scaled new heights in architectural glass design history as the tallest building in Europe and the second-tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom. The very name is a tribute to glass, as it shimmers over 1016 feet high, designed with an irregular pyramid shape from the base up to the top. Clad entirely in glass, The Shard boasts of a sophisticated use of glazing with expressive façades of angled glass panes. A whopping 11000 panes of glass have been used across the building. These panes have been so used to reflect sunlight and the sky, so that the building's appearance transforms in tune with the weather and seasons. 


Besides its visual beauty, The Shard is a towering example of sustainability and energy-efficient Glass.

• 95% of the construction materials recycled

• 20% of all steelwork from recycled sources

• Local jobs and training ensured during construction and operation

• Combined heat and power creates efficiencies across the whole site saving 10% CO2 annually

• Triple skin intelligent façade minimized the effects of solar gain, whilst allowing maximum use of natural light

• Fitted with a combined heat and power (CHP) plant, operating on natural gas

• The gas engine fuelled by gas originating from the National Grid; fuel efficiently converted to electricity and heat recovered from the engine to provide hot water for the building.

The Shard is a project by the renowned Sellar Property Group, designed by the celebrated Italian architect Renzo Piano in collaboration with Britain’s Richard Rogers. Conceptualized as a mixed-use tower with office, hotel, residential and public space, it accommodates 72 habitable floors. It has a viewing gallery and open-air observation deck (UK's highest) on the 72nd floor, at a height of 804 feet. Unveiled on 5th July, 2012, it is scheduled to open to the public in February 2013.


Setting tall standards in building design excellence, The Shard has indeed touched glorious new heights with its classy, glass facade...

Energy Efficiency & Glass Façade Magnificence: Stadttor (City Gate)

Introducing yet another architectural wonder that has allowed concrete, steel and aluminium to give way to glass, for its much talked-about aesthetic and functional benefits - Stadttor (City Gate) in Düsseldorf, Germany. This is a building with a double-skin glass façade that keeps the premises well-lit, cool, energy-efficient and so on.

Stadttor (City Gate)

Stadttor (City Gate) is the President’s office and the seat of the State Chancellery NRW. This building was designed by Petzinka, Pink & Partners. It encompasses aspects of traditional design and well as state-of-the-art energy performance capabilities.

This spectacular building consists of two rhombic parallel glass towers with 16 floors each, and 3 attic floors connected to one another. Two glass towers enclose a 56m high atrium in the centre, designed to allow maximum natural daylight - a citywide building ordinance. Also, each of the towers has a corridor with a double-skin façade, and a single-storey interstitial space that is 90-140 cm deep and 20-m long.

Glass Façade

The interior glass façade features double-pane, low-E glazed doors operable at every other bay. The exterior of the building follows the "structural glazing" principle. The exterior façade is 12-mm fixed safety glass. High-reflectance Venetian blinds are located in the interstitial space. At each story, a climate buffer corridor circulates fresh air between facades, allowing natural ventilation for 60% of the year.

Efficient Ventilation

The two gate towers are built in a way to give a full view of the surrounding environment to the building occupants. Each floor has a 750 m² surface. Thanks to its ventilating systems, new air-conditioning and double glass façade, there are 70% lower incidental expenses than conventional full air-conditioning. The facade inner space natural ventilation of the building creates a climatic shield and it definitely supplies fresh air throughout the office. During the summer, even the extreme heat does not affect the room temperature, owing to the cooling system which extracts cold air from soil.

Mechanical ventilation is provided during peak summer and winter hours. The building is capable of being naturally ventilated for 60% of the year.

The Stadttor’s mechanical systems are fully computerized, with 14,000 sensors located throughout the building to moderate and maximize energy efficiency. In winter months, the structure uses on-site recaptured heat as well as excess thermal heat produced by Stromkraftwerks, an electrical plant upriver on the Rhine. An on-site geo-exchange system supplements heating with ceiling-integrated radiant transfer that also serves the building’s cooling needs.

Long-lasting lighting systems that are centrally programmed have been fixed; these can also be manually controlled within work spaces. Natural daylighting, natural ventilation and humidity control provide optimum thermal comfort that enhances occupant experience as well as the building’s energy performance.

Environmentally Energetic Solar Power Glass Facade

In recent years, several techniques for capture and use of solar energy have been developed. This technology is being bettered by the day, along with a growing awareness of the benefits of the use of solar energy.

Glass in architecture is one of the major driving forces of this change in the attitude towards the harnessing and use of solar energy. The latest development is the creation of a system called Integrated Concentrating (IC) Solar Facade System that tracks and utilizes solar energy from glass façades for generating electricity.

This advanced façade system was developed by the Center for Architecture Science and Ecology (CASE). The system is architecturally integrated into the facades and roof atria of buildings to provide optimum outside view and flood the interiors with daylight.

The system is made up of rows of pyramid-shaped glass receptors, which change their direction frequently to keep track of the sunlight. All the energy is stored in a small photovoltaic cell built in the center of each pyramid. The transparent design not only makes the system attractive, but also allows light to pass through the system more effectively for energy storage.

The IC Solar System facade produces electricity with a PV cell that captures much of the solar energy that is used for purposes such as heating water for domestic purposes, space heating (or, possibly, for distributed absorption refrigeration cooling) and reduction of solar heat gain by the building. The glass pyramid shape actually serves to magnify light and increase the natural lighting inside a building while decreasing the need for artificial light. The design and operation of the system permits direct partial views of the outside to the building's inhabitants.

Working Process:

The advanced feature is the miniaturized concentrator solar cell, which uses a lens with concentric grooves to focus collected light. Even though it is only the size of a postage stamp compared to the usual solar collector area that spans 4 x 4 feet, the cell is much more efficient in collecting and reusing solar energy. The lens focuses incoming sunlight onto the solar cell. Microchannels at the base of the module transfer energy in the form of heat and light to wires contained inside. Each vertical stack of lenses rolls and tilts like a track blind, keeping the surface of the lenses faced to incoming sunlight as the sun changes position in the sky throughout the day.

This modular design can also be attached to a range of existing building structures and also implemented into new designs. This system requires very less maintenance and is very useful for regions with hot climate.

Transparency with Glass in Architecture

Buildings that use glass on their facades allow for visibility from the inside and even the outside, depending on the nature of the glass used. What makes glass the material of choice for building exteriors is properties like transparency, allowing for maximum natural light flow, solar control and sheer elegance, among others.

1. Sipoo Upper Secondary School

Sipoo Upper Secondary School / IT College, designed by K2S Architects Ltd is located in the town of Sipoo, close to Helsinki, Finland. The L-shaped pavilion-like glass building forms the last corner of an existing school campus. The urban setting is dominated by two curved yards; a larger one towards the campus garden and a smaller court yard connected to the main road. The two curved transparent glass façades don't just open up the school towards the surrounding town, but also provide view from one classroom to another and strengthen the sense of community within the school.

The street side facade is broken up into smaller volumes to relate to the scale of the surrounding villas. A cast-on-site concrete stair topped by a large conical top light forms the focal point in the central lobby space. This space forms the heart of the building, both spatially and functionally. While performing the typical functions of entrance and staircase, it also acts as a space where students can meet up when not at class. A small mediatheaque and a café in the southern wing open up towards the central lobby. The class rooms are reduced in their material palette into industrial IT-workshops.

2. Shanghai, Exterior Office Building

Shanghai, Exterior Office Building in Atelier Deshaus is a three-story building encloses a green yard with a steel and glass framework. This building simply looks like a glass box. The first floor is elevated and only houses the reception and a restaurant. We took into consideration the views not only from the interior but also from the exterior. This building looks like a cube covered with a glass curtain wall. While clearly defining the private space in the interior, the transparent glass walls also create a visual communication to the landscapes inside and outside.

In this way, the ground floor spaces flow from the central garden to the exterior landscape and an uninterrupted view goes through the building. The inside volume is surfaced with a printed glass curtain wall. Glass with “broken ice” pattern is chosen for this building. It is adopted from a kind of traditional Chinese interior decoration. The patterns nicely represents that they keep the unity, even when putting the different pieces together.

3. Theatre Agora

Theatre Agora located at in the Dutch city of Lelystad Austria. This building is mostly glass and steel shaded by an outer façade of a glittering mesh more at the nights. The appearance is impacted by changes in light as well as by proximity and viewing angles. The muted pattern on the outer mesh is repetitive and meant to symbolize the sonority repetition brings to music.

4. Sport Architecture building Siauliai arena

Sport Architecture Building is glazed with luxury glass which imparts to the building a design sophisticated look. The architects wished for it to appear as a chameleon; therefore choosing holographic glass for the facade. The facade shades change with changing lighting: in bright sunlight it looks like a vivid playful rainbow, whereas cloudy or rainy settings give it a calm and solid view.