Designing with Structural Glass

Abstract

Glass has been in existence for more than four thousand years. Techniques of manufacturing and design have since been under constant development. Today, we face new opportunities and challenges with respect to structural glass applications. This paper will explore objectives as to why glass is specified on building projects and outline key parameters which must be considered when designing with structural glass. A holistic approach and emerging design and construction techniques such as digital design, multi parameter optimization techniques, bar coding of glass, additive manufacturing and the potential of Building Information Modelling (BIM), will be discussed. Lateral thinking and examples from other industries will be presented and the paper will be briefly summarized.