Architecture for Athens 2004 - Roof & Facade

News & Events
Roof&Facade Asia
Laminated glass interlayers for
demanding applications
ROOF & FACADE ASIA met
with Dr Luc De Temmerman, Senior
Vice President and Chief Operating
Officer, Solutia Inc, manufacturers of
laminated glass interlayers, during
a recent trip he made to Singapore,
and asked him about the company’s
business prospects, product
offerings and projects.
R&F Asia: Briefly, what is the Dr Luc De Temmerman.
strategy that Solutia has adopted
for the medium-term, regarding business and product
application, on a worldwide basis?
Dr Luc De Temmerman: Solutia’s Laminated Glazing
Interlayers business is focused globally on maintaining
its role as the most reliable partner and the most
innovative product and process provider in the
marketplace. In short, this means both laminators and
glass companies, as well as architects and designers, have
complete confidence that Solutia’s interlayers are the best
available in the world. In addition, they can rely on
Solutia to provide the next generation of products with
the benefits and enhancements they seek, to solve
problems or raise the bar in design and execution.
Globally, we started with safety and security products.
We have in the recent past, added products with improved
aesthetics including colour, acoustics, and solar and
hurricane protection benefits to our range. The solar control
products have been developed, particularly for customers
in Asia. And more innovations are on the way.
R&F Asia: From the point of view of the demand for
Solutia’s products, which are the important markets in
Asia?
Dr Luc De Temmerman: As regards the Asia Pacific region, our
focus is on increasing the penetration of PVB in emerging
markets like India, ASEAN, and China, and we offer products
with additional benefits for the developed markets like Japan
and Australia.
The Asia Pacific markets remain very important to Solutia’s
overall business strategy. It is our fastest growing region. We
predict laminated glass demand in Asia Pacific will be growing
6.5% to 7.5% annually over the next 4 to 5 years. Most of the
growth will be in China. With respect to our growth, the Asia
Pacific region has been growing close to 15% per year.
R&F Asia: In this region, what specific products find
application, and for what types of buildings?
Dr Luc De Temmerman: Globally speaking, our
architectural products are used in many different types
of applications.
Safety and Security are the drivers for both emerging
markets such as China and India and for developed
markets such as Australia and Japan, and this is mostly
code driven.
In the past, we had seen very high growth rates in
China for use in bullet proof glass for banks. Aesthetics
is an additional need and we are seeing steady growth in
demand for the colour interlayers of our Vanceva range.
Our high-performance Hurricane interlayers have
been in great demand in the US, due to code requirements
which will hopefully be implemented in other parts of
the world, including the Asia Pacific region.
We have seen increasing emphasis for Energy
Conservation/ Green technology in the developed
markets with solar being a driver and for which we have
developed our Vanceva advanced solar control range of
PVB products.
Further, with the industry focus on protecting people
and property, we have seen strong interest in our Saflex
and Vanceva interlayers for security applications.
Most of our Saflex and Vanceva interlayers go into
facades in the commercial segment of the market – in
high-rise office buildings, shopping centres, restaurants,
showrooms, and in entertainment complexes, museums,
airports etc.
R&F Asia: Please explain how the company’s
‘debottlenecking’ efforts help to meet the needs of customers
in Asia.
Dr Luc De Temmerman: As a result of a seamless,
collaborative effort between Solutia’s technology and
manufacturing teams, the Laminated Glazing Interlayers
business is now benefiting from its ongoing
debottlenecking effort at plant sites worldwide. More
importantly, the results are helping Solutia to provide
better service to its customers.
For Asia, this means our laminator partners benefit
from increased overall supply, supply confidence, and
greater product and process innovation as they grow and
expand their product offerings in the region.
One example of our efforts in Asia is the increased
emphasis we have put on our Singapore Finishing Centre,
which ensures supply security in the region. The
efficiency of the SFC is a main reason that Solutia
continues to improve its impressive 95% On Time
Delivery rate and earn strong customer satisfaction
ratings in that category.
R&F Asia: What are some of the recent, interesting
projects where Solutia products have been used?
Dr Luc De Temmerman: We have been involved in almost
all the major airport projects that have come up in the
region – Changi Terminal 1 and Terminal 2, Shanghai
Pudong Airport, Guangzhou Airport, Chong Quing
Airport, and the upcoming New Bangkok Airport Project,
and we hope to be involved in the new ones coming up,
such as Beijing Airport and Changi Terminal 3.
We have been involved in sports infrastructure, like
the World Cup Football stadium in France, facilities for
the Sydney Olympics, facilities for the Winter Olympics
in Salt Lake City and the Flemington Race course in
Australia. The Futian Sports Centre coming up in
Shenzhen, China, will use Vanceva to achieve the five
colours of the Olympic rings.
We have seen increasing use of colour in the Asia
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Pacific region. For East Century Park in Taipei, Vanceva
color in 10 different colours was used. Other projects
using Vanceva color are Dalian Commercial Centre in
China, Black Pearl in Taipei, Cyber Port Project in Hong
Kong, and Changi Village Hotel in Singapore.
Internationally, Media Market in Holland and Maestro
Nicolau Street in Barcelona are some projects which use
Vanceva color interlayers for facades.
Our Vanceva interlayers with enhanced solar benefits
were used in the recently inaugurated Guangzhou
Airport project. We are doing a number of exciting
projects with solar interlayers in Australia, like the Philips
Street project.
Our metallic interlayers from our Vanceva range have
been used in facades in Okinawa by leading Japanese
architect Shin Takamatsu.
A good example of a facade application, is the Palmas
building in Mexico that used Vanceva metallic and
Vanceva color.
R&F Asia: In summary, what distinguishes Solutia as a
company?
Dr Luc De Temmerman: We would claim several features.
Firstly, we invest to produce quality products for
laminators. Secondly, in terms of customer service, we
ensure on-time delivery of the products that architects,
designers, facade consultants and other specifiers want,
at the right price and with the highest quality. Thirdly,
we employ the right people to provide technical service
to customers. We also look forward to working creatively
with customers, to bring out new products. They
determine what they need. We are there to develop these
products and develop the market with them. RnF
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Enquiry No: 10/120
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Asia
Roof & Facade Asia • October 2004 17