PDF (1.68 MB) - PLEXIGLAS

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[ D l A ] Deslgn ln Acryllcs
04 Pulled out:
16 Routed out:
18 Well thought out:
20 Sorted out:
22 Turfed out:
slotted tabletop for
designer chair by
bent plastic for curvy
luminous displays for
old containers for new
flexible size
Fukasawa for Vita
designs
energy-saving signs
housing ideas
2008 N O 5 Magazine of the Acrylic Polymers Business Line
Take a Seat at the Microsoft Tabletop
“Surface” with projection screen made of PLEXIGLAS ®

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Dear Readers:
To be fit for the future, we have to develop new perspectives based on experience and
move with the times. PLEXIGLAS ® has done more than that for 75 years – this mutable
material is usually one step ahead.
The multimedia tabletop computer "Surface" has a huge touchscreen that is equipped
with next-generation remote control software. It is set to become a multifunctional docking
station for a variety of multimedia end devices. Thanks to its ultra-high purity PLEXIGLAS ®
surface, infrared cameras can recognize cell phones, MP3 players and digital cameras placed
on the surface. The stored information, whether music titles, photos or films, appears on the
tabletop as an interactive stack. These data can be copied from one device to another just by
pointing a finger.
The new PLEXIGLAS ® signs at China's Pudong Airport in Shanghai also point people
in the right direction. With low energy consumption, these signs guarantee uniform
luminosity, offering dual benefits in terms of appearance and ecology.
PLEXIGLAS ® is the foundation for many innovative developments by designers and
artists. American architect Peter DeMaria shows how recycling is meant to work. He combined
PLEXIGLAS ® elements and redundant shipping containers to produce an ultramodern
detached house.
And Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa makes his own contribution to furnishings.
He has designed a series of unadorned, functional chairs. One of them is made from three
almost invisibly bonded blocks of transparent PLEXIGLAS ® .
We hope you draw inspiration from these and other topics.
Wishing you an enjoyable read,
Michael Träxler,
Senior Vice President
Acrylic Polymers BL
A Moment in Time
A new star lights up the night sky of Moscow: advertising companies
in the Russian capital have now discovered illuminated signs made from
PLEXIGLAS ® EndLighten. The signs can be seen all over the city and
make sure the message hits home, especially in the dark. PLEXIGLAS ®
EndLighten is a light-diffusing transparent acrylic with special lightguiding
behavior.
Illuminated displays equipped with edge-lit sheets of PLEXIGLAS ®
EndLighten distribute the light fed in via the edges uniformly across the
entire surface. The material makes it possible to produce ultra-slim, largesized
displays that are uniformly lit on one or both sides.
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A form of expression for new ideas for 75 years. From bus glazing to the so-called Snow White‘s Coffin (middle of first row) and Badajoz Congress Center (middle of third
row): the acrylic from Evonik Röhm GmbH offers convincing performance in all its applications.
75 Years of Innovation
Ideas and visions are the driving forces behind science and research. Otto Röhm, the inventor of
acrylic, also followed his vision.
[History] Seventy-five years after the discovery of
acrylic, the success story of this material is far from over. On the
contrary, it has just started. New material properties have been
found using innovative discoveries like
nanotechnology. One result is that the
impact strength of this plastic has been
further enhanced by incorporating nanoparticles,
compounds of a few or several
thousand atoms or molecules.
This story had already begun in
1901, when Swedish King Gustav VI
Adolf conferred the Nobel Prize for the
first time. This was precisely when German
scientist Otto Röhm wrote his doctoral
thesis on acrylic acid, a clear chemical
compound miscible with water, with
a pungent acidic odor. Back then, he already had the idea of putting
the chemical to a variety of uses, and devoted all his research
to the acrylates family, with astounding results only a few
years later.
When it all began
In the “golden twenties,” the cultural and economic heyday
in the first half of the twentieth century, an important discovery
was made almost by chance. The idea was to form a sheet
from residues of the polymerization process. To do so, the residues
were compressed between two panes of glass exposed to
heat. The result was an unexpectedly firm bond between the
two panes of glass, which marked the discovery of the laminated
safety glass called LUGLAS ® . In the same way, experiments were
conducted with methyl methacrylate. This time, the compound
was easy to remove from the glass sheets. The result was an extremely
stable and highly transparent plastic, acrylic, which was
launched on the market in 1933.
as aircraft glazing. In the 1940s and 1950s, interior designers
discovered the material for their creations. But the material had
more to offer than mere transparency. The development of continuously
new colors, surface textures,
geometries and sophisticated properties
made acrylic more versatile than ever before.
Intensive research and development
meant that the product range was constantly
extended. Noise barriers along
highways, wind protection on bridges,
antistatic picture glazing and colorful illuminated
signs are only a few examples.
The future starts here
Despite all the confidence Otto
Röhm had in his product, the range of applications is now vaster
than he could ever have imagined 75 years ago. Nor could he
have dreamed that acrylic would ever be suitable for producing
small, lightweight portable telephones that need no base station
and no cables. Yet transparency, clarity, scratch resistance and
good light-guiding properties are precisely the special features
that make this material so appropriate for cell phone screens
and light guides for TFT displays. Acrylic already contributes to
protecting our climate and the environment. In photovoltaics,
a technology that generates power from light, the material ensures
that a maximum of light is guided to the solar cell to enable
optimum use of power. Without a doubt, Otto Röhm let
himself be guided by an idea that remains full of innovative potential
even 75 years on. dr
www.plexiglas.net
Gold for Röhm
The versatility of this discovery became apparent in 1935.
Röhm had the unusual idea of making musical instruments
from the material, and a violin was finally produced after lengthy
studies. In 1937, Röhm received the Grand Prix for this innovative
product at the World‘s Fair in Paris. At this point in time, the
plastic was already being put to a number of different uses, such
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Mutable is the motto of a
furniture series from Lignum
Arts.
Cube-shaped shelves hide
away chairs that can be
taken out as required.
Take a seat on
PLEXIGLAS ® and
bamboo.
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Laser-cut PLEXIGLAS ® can be pushed together or pulled apart like an accordion, depending on the desired size of the table.
Shape-Shifters
Pull-out tables, concealable chairs:
Unusual furniture from Lignum Arts
[Furniture Design] A furniture series with a small
table that can be simply extended, and four chairs that disappear
inside shelves when not in use – these were what Tobias
Jung had in his mind's eye, at least, when he sat his master
craftsman exams at the school of carpentry in Garmisch, Upper
Bavaria, in 2000. Now he has made his idea come true. Jung runs
the furniture company Lignum Arts near Munich together with
his associate Dennis Dostmann. This is where the master carpenter
realizes his ideas for innovative furniture and interior
design concepts, which are all flexible, functional and unusuallooking.
Versatile materials like PLEXIGLAS ® are essential in his
line of business: “It's a smart material because it has a finished
surface that needs no further treatment. That means less work.
And it can be flexibly curved and formed to the required shape,”
Jung says.
The accordion as role model
One of his most unusual designs is an extendable table
made of bamboo and PLEXIGLAS SATINICE ® . “Our basic idea
was to develop a table that can be pulled out simply and
smoothly. For this we needed a material that could be laser-cut,
and that's how we came across PLEXIGLAS ® ,” Jung reports. The
table is based on the principle of the accordion. For this, the
PLEXIGLAS ® sheet is slit with a laser like expanded metal. The
material is very elastic and can therefore be pulled apart very
easily. Since the PLEXIGLAS ® structure is not subsequently
covered by a separate table leaf, the lasered slits cannot be more
than one centimeter apart – otherwise glasses would wobble and
small objects could fall through the openings. It comes as no
surprise that Jung chose PLEXIGLAS SATINICE ® for this table, it
being his favorite material: “The new shades of gold, grey and
brown are absolutely fantastic,” says Jung, who has already received
the coveted red dot design award for one of his previous
ideas. Jung keeps up to date on the fur ther development of
PLEXIGLAS ® shapes, colors and material textures, and cooperates
closely with König Kunststoffe, who give him material
samples, product information and fabrication tips. He sees a
future for his PLEXIGLAS ® and bamboo furniture especially at
trade shows and as store fixtures. But this chic and functio nal
furniture is popular for office furnishing, too.
Adaptable appointments
Jung developed a matching chair with a similar appearance
and an added extra. The PLEXIGLAS ® backrest can be removed,
inserted in the frame and put away in a matching set of shelves.
Since all elements of the furniture collection are so mobile and
variable, Jung has named the series “Mutable.” Conspicuous is the
combination of bamboo and PLEXIGLAS SATINICE ® in Silicate
Green, which looks futuristic yet natural, because of the wood.
Here, the synthetic and natural material unite to form a harmonious
whole. dr
www.lignum-arts.de
A table that grows for
large and small
meetings
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Safe Escort
Illuminated handrail for stairs
[Lighting] As night falls in South Africa, the sky over a
holiday home in Cape Town slowly darkens. In the stairwell,
shadows creep across a sculpture and an oil painting. Just then,
the staircase banister starts to glow and lights the way.
The owners of the holiday home wanted an unusual type
of lighting, reports Ulrich Lorenzen, chief design engineer at
LED specialist Lumière Technologies. So the department for industrial
design headed by Berno Wellmann developed a handrail
lit by LEDs, and chose a tube of PLEXIGLAS SATINICE ® as the
suitable material. “It was the best option to use: From a lighting
diffusing perspective it did exactly what we required as we
compared the result to a clear glass tube that was sandblasted.
The diffusion was more even due to the inherent texture of
PLEXIGLAS SATINICE ® that was part of the acrylic manufacturing
process.” The uniform glow also convinced the customer. An
added bonus is that the handrail is easy to clean because the
smooth PLEXIGLAS ® surface discourages dirt and handprints.
The banister‘s elegant appearance conceals a sophisticated
structure. Three hundred LEDs are mounted on an aluminum
rail inside the 4.3-meter-long tube. The inner texture of the rail
cools the light sources and simultaneously connects the tube
with the four steel wall brackets. Whereas the main electric cable
runs inside the wall, the LEDs are linked to it via the inside of the
made-to-measure wall brackets. Since the system runs on low
voltage (10 V), it is very safe and has a maximum energy consumption
of 60 watts. In principle, it could also be used as
emergency lighting for escape routes. “That will become a more
attractive option as LED technology becomes even cheaper in
the future,” Lorenzen says. The construction principle also
lends itself to other applications. Lorenzen and his colleagues
are currently working on an eight-meter-high water level indicator
for an exclusive yacht harbor. Rather than helping people
safely up stairs, here the system makes sure ships pass through a
lock without mishaps. hf
www.lumiere.co.za
Made-to-measure wall
bracket that also supplies the
illuminated handrail with
electricity
New additions to the range of extruded PLEXIGLAS ®
tubes and rods
80
O
5
O 20
97
67
120°
O 50
O 50
45
Tubes
Previously, extruded PLEXIGLAS ® tubes
were only available with an outside diameter
of 5 to 300 mm.
Since February 2008, the tubes have
been available with
– outside diameters of 400 mm, 450
mm and 500 mm
– wall thicknesses of 4 mm and 5 mm
– a standard length of 2000 mm.
Special lengths are possible on request.
Applications:
– transparent seamless displays for furniture,
tradeshow booths and store fixtures
– XXL lamps and lighting fixtures
Round rods
PLEXIGLAS ® rods have been frequently
used for staircase banisters and handrails,
lamps, lettering, spectacle stands,
displays and furniture. New to the
range are PLEXIGLAS ® EndLighten
round rods. One light source at the end
of the rod suffices to uniformly illuminate
the entire rod. That saves energy
and prevents hot spots. PLEXIGLAS ®
EndLighten round rods have the additional
advantage of being much more
impact-resistant than glass.
Applications:
– lettering
– lamps
– furniture lighting
– indirect light
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Adhesive Goes AWOL
ACRIFIX ® at the service of designers
[Technology] “Soyons Fou!” (Let's Go Crazy) is the
name of a French communications design agency, a name that
says it all. Designers there have been working with illuminated
furniture for almost 15 years. When it came to designing two
PLEXIGLAS ® bars for the French vodka label “Grey Goose,” Grégoire
Thibault and his colleagues at Soyons Fou! wanted the
special bar design and blue-white light to remind viewers of icecold
vodka. The challenge was to incorporate transparent elements
into the matte surface of PLEXIGLAS SATINICE ® and illuminate
them to provide sophisticated lighting effects.
Soyons Fou! found the unusual solution to their idea in the
“Creative Box” of the PLEXIGLAS ® It’s Magic
campaign conducted by Evonik Röhm GmbH. As
well as a number of material samples from the
entire product range, the box contains a selection
of different ACRIFIX ® adhesives for bonding
PLEXIGLAS ® , to which ACRIFIX ® is chemically
closely related. When applied to a surface, it initially
causes the material to swell at the site of
application. As the surfaces cure, they are united
when the acrylic molecules become interlocked.
The French designers took advantage of this property. They
applied the adhesive to both sides of the bar material using stencils
to create the logo. This provided a translucent effect at the
places where the adhesive had dissolved the matte surface.
Grégoire Thibault says: “We illuminate the bonded shapes with
white light and blue spotlights. The adhesive left fine lines
and bubbles on the material that underline the freshness and
liveliness of the design. The effect is truly astonishing.” Helmut
Hilsmann, Acrylic Sheet Sales Manager France adds: “It's far from
easy to create clean lines using an adhesive and stencils. The
adhesive tends to seep below the stencil. But Soyons Fou!
ACRIFIX ® adhesive lends special transparency to the shape of
the "Grey Goose“ vodka emblem.
brought it off. The transparent bonded surface makes for a
brilliant appearance.”
Evonik is presently working on a brochure that gives an
overview of the extensive range of PLEXIGLAS ® adhesives. The
new feature is that the brochure sums up the entire adhesives
range. “The technical data sheets we have produced so far, and
will continue to use, only provide information on individual
adhesives," Martin Hoffmann, Product Manager Performance
Polymers, tells us. “The new brochure contains a two-page
decision tree that helps users select the suitable product.” The
new brochure is set to appear this summer. em
www.soyonsfou.com
One More Shot for PLEXIGLAS ®
Filming a climate protection video
[Vodcast] “Yes, that was very good – one more time!“
And another, and another. Cameramen are never satisfied, and
patience is of the essence. But in the end, it is obvious why the
man behind the camera was so obstinate. Video shots have to be
perfect, otherwise they detract from the content. And with the
vodcasts filmed for the PLEXIGLAS ® campaign “This is what climate
protection looks like,” the content is all-important. The lat -
est video deals with lighting and how PLEXIGLAS ® saves energy.
It can be viewed at the website: www.plexiglas-and-energy.com
www.plexiglas-and-energy.com
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“The pathbreaking development here was that we equipped an entire studio
almost entirely with PLEXIGLAS ® ,”
says Martin Scherffig, head of the equipment department at Hessischer Rundfunk
Exciting Viewing
Leading role for PLEXIGLAS ®
[TV Studios] It only takes a few seconds to switch from
channel to channel on the remote control, and straight away we
can see which series, news program or show we've found. Apart
from the TV presenters themselves, it's the stage set that gives
each format its typical and individual face. Sets have to be creative,
eye-catching and unique. And often it is PLEXIGLAS ® that
adds the finishing touch to many TV studios.
New “outfit“ in Norway
In all, Norwegian TV recently equipped 16 new studios
with PLEXIGLAS ® . Three news broadcast studios in Oslo and
thirteen more local studios were given a face-lift. “The materials
were routed, thermoformed and individually cut to size for each
set. Some of the surfaces of the presenters' desks were paneled
with PLEXIGLAS SATINICE ® by means of a special technique,”
says Petra Carnbäck at Glasfiber & Plastprodukter AB, the company
that supplied the material for the huge project. The new
rooms were given an ultra-modern look with futuristic backdrops,
a variety of colors and different shapes.
Pathbreaking developments with PLEXIGLAS ®
German regional broadcasting company Hessischer Rundfunk
(HR) in Frankfurt has already had experience with the material,
which is used to advantage in HR's TV studios. The studio
used for the De Facto program plays a special role: “The pathbreaking
development here was that we equipped an entire studio
almost entirely with PLEXIGLAS ® ,” says Martin Scherffig,
head of the equipment department at HR. Although there are
plenty of programs that manage without real studio sets and
make do with digital spaces, landscapes or backgrounds using
blue screen technology, they will not replace real studios: “This
technology can't replace the furniture used by guests and pre -
senters, nor the big sets for entertainment shows with a live
audience,” Scherffig says. At the moment, satin materials are
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“Whether for magazine programs, news broadcasts or shows,
the material will continue to play a leading role on TV and stay
on the scene for a long time to come.”
very popular since their light transmission combined with
studio lighting offers many advantages and shows the studio
lighting in its true colors on the viewer's screen at home. The
material is machined, cut to size and repaired at HR's own workshop.
But it is not just the material's variety of colors, formability
and manifold properties that make this plastic a firm component
of studio and stage sets; its impact strength, ease of machining
and special advantages in terms of fire protection are
further benefits : “In the event of fire, PLEXIGLAS ® produces
neither thick smoke nor toxic fumes, and is easy to extinguish.
This has been confirmed by many independent institutes and
fire experts,” says Martin Berkenkopf, Product Manager at Acrylic
Polymers BL.
Scherffig also intends to keep using PLEXIGLAS ® : “Whether
for magazine programs, news broadcasts or shows, the material
will continue to play a leading role on TV and stay on the scene
for a long time to come.” dr
International TV presence: studio designers in Norway too rely on PLEXIGLAS ® .
www.plexiglas.net
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Mysterious Shape-Changer
Aiorema grows seamlessly out of the asphalt like a glowing stalagmite.
The structural marquee bears the inscription “Portland Center Stage.”
[Interior Design] The sculpture created by artist
James Harrison was to have a “ghostly, ephemeral” aura, he says.
And at first sight, it certainly gives no hint of the sophisticated
technology concealed inside, like the fiber optic ropes fed by a
150-watt light source that illuminate the sculpture. Nor does
one see the three solid steel rods that keep Aiorema in shape. All
in all, the structure makes quite a few passersby stop in their
tracks.
Show the best, hide the rest
The easiest way to hide the technical equipment would
have been to install a platform beneath the sculpture. “Unfortunately
that would have given it a completely mundane appearance,”
Harrison says. So he came up with a different idea. The
sculpture is shaped like a cloud at the base and like a star against
the sky. The shapes that symbolize the Greek seat of the gods
thus morph into each other. It took a total of 215 individual
sections that the artist cut from 27 PLEXIGLAS ® Satin Ice sheets
using a water jet cutter. The individual parts were then posttensioned
on site on three steel rods inserted in the asphalt.
To conceal the technical equipment, Harrison created a
cavity in the middle of the structure, which was later to accommodate
the fiber optic ropes. The sole access is provided by a
door at the base of the sculpture. For this, Harrison cut segments
about 30 cm wide out of some of the large sheets at the base of
Aiorema and bonded them separately. The door itself also had to
be segmented so as not to detract from the overall impression.
The artist screw-fastened the segments with special screws that
can only be undone with a special screwdriver. He did this to
prevent anyone who happens to have an ordinary screwdriver
on them from snuffing out Aiorema's light.
meanings: a contrivance used in ancient Greek theater to resolve
a seemingly intractable problem in the plot, and the name
of the device that brought off this theatrical trick - a crane that
was used to lower an actor playing a god onto the stage while he
announced his improbable solution.
“I thought Aiorema was an appropriate way to link old and
new. New theater, old concept - old building, new marquee,”
Harrison explains.
Aiorema's secret
It is not by chance that the sculpture was made from
PLEXIGLAS ® . “This material met all the requirements,” the designer
sums up. “It is hard enough to provide stable structures
and affordable, unlike some other synthetic materials.“ Added
to this, it is highly weather-resistant and has the required light
transmission properties. PLEXIGLAS ® Satin Ice is translucent but
not transparent, and has a special diffuser structure that offers
exceptional lighting properties. It distributes the light evenly
across the entire surface without revealing any of its innermost
secrets.
Aiorema remains a mystery to the eye. smw
www.plexiglas.net
Eye-catcher with a history
The American designer created the sculpture made of
PLEXIGLAS ® Satin Ice for the famous Portland Center Stage
(PCS) in the state of Oregon. Shortly before, the theater had
moved to the city's renovated historic Armory building. To draw
people's attention to the new location, PCS needed a real eyecatcher.
Aiorema is the Greek word for what is known in Latin as
deus ex machina, a god from a machine. The term has two
Aiorema consists of 215
individual parts assembled by
hand.
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Dining in Different Dimensions
A room within a room made of PLEXICOR ®
[Interior Design] Replacing an office block with a
canteen for guests is a task that, while creative, calls for a utilitarian
approach. “Our guest canteen had to be designed based on a
standard floor plan that was mainly designed for offices,” says
Steffen Bader, Project Manager at SAP in Walldorf. The interior
designers at Häussler GmbH Office Solutions accepted this challenge
and presented an attractive concept. They divided the
canteen and lounge into different areas using wooden and carpeted
flooring, ceiling-high facade glazing, a projecting ceiling
and a very special cube in the center of the room, which is a sheltered
area offering privacy and constitutes the centerpiece of the
lounge.
Intensive search for material
The room inside a room is open on two sides. The floor,
ceiling and walls form one broad strip that is rolled up like a
tube. The floor of the cube is paneled with PLEXICOR ® , which
the interior designers came across after an intensive search. “We
hadn't worked with it before, but we were looking for something
that met our technical, aesthetic and design requirements at the
same time.” The material was not only meant to underline the
canteen's innovative atmosphere, but also be strong enough to
take the daily wear and tear on these busy premises. The flooring
had to be non-skid and resistant to abrasion and chemical cleaning
agents.
PLEXICOR ® won the contest
The options discussed included rubber, PVC and laminated
flooring. “But those would not have offered the brilliance
and color we were looking for,” the team explains. Another alternative
would have been mineralized plastics. “But because
these plastics are textured, you can always see the joints between
the sheets.” That would have been contrary to the design.
“We wanted an uninterrupted surface.” The flooring was to
segue seamlessly into the curved walls. “PLEXICOR ® now acts as
a continuous surface without joints, just like we wanted.” smw
www.plexiglas.net
The room open on both sides appears to hover inside SAP‘s guest canteen.
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Take a Seat at the
Microsoft Tabletop
Microsoft Surface has a projection screen made of PLEXIGLAS ®
[Multimedia] When you put a digital camera on the
tabletop, photos appear on its surface. These can be pushed
around, turned, enlarged or made smaller at the touch of a fingertip.
No need for a mouse, keyboard or cables. That will be one
of many future applications.
Anyone who can spread out holiday snapshots, pile up
magazines or place their cell phone on their coffee table can also
operate Surface. The unassuming name stands for a multimedia
tabletop computer jam-packed with complex technology.
Surface looks just like a coffee table. And it may well
feature in living rooms quite soon, as a multifunctional touchscreen
for operating television, stereo equipment and heating
systems. Or it might stand in the kitchen, where it will serve
as a source for recipes, for managing food stocks and as a
monitor for ordering the next lot of shopping. At the moment,
this is all visionary stuff, but the communications medium
can already be found in several casinos, stores and selected
restaurants in the USA. Soon it may replace the menu, the
board game and the dining table. Guests could leaf through
virtual pages, select items with their fingertips and order by
lightly pressing the desired item. Then the interface could turn
into a board game. The waiter would only need to come to the
table when the order was ready. At the end of the meal, guests
could also pay via Surface, comfortably, with no need for cash
and no waiting.
Dinner is served
For all this to work, it takes an ordinary computer with
Microsoft Vista and highly sophisticated software. Several users
can simultaneously select items at one Surface tabletop, and
their inputs are registered and interpreted via an infrared lens.
Five cameras measure the infrared signals coming from the interface.
To avoid misunderstandings, the screen has to meet the
most stringent optical requirements. It is composed of several
functional optical layers based on PLEXIGLAS ® .

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Up for grabs
An interdisciplinary team of plastics specialists,
physicists, chemists and materials analysts worked together
to devise the precise formulation of the individual
layers, their combination and joint effects, in
a development cooperation arrangement between
Microsoft and Evonik. At the end of this period, the
tabletop was ready to face the digital future.
"We redefined quality by working on Surface.
We're talking about optical technologies fit for the
next millennium, which can't be compared with
anything we've done so far," says Dr. Alexander Laschitsch.
Together with Frank Lerch, he is responsible
for the project at Evonik Röhm GmbH.
"Our company has had rear projection expertise
for some time, and that helped us to handle this huge challenge,
where all the components have to be adjusted to each other
down to the last detail to provide the optimum result," Lerch
adds.
With a product like Surface, the feel is important. People
have to feel that the screen is pleasant to touch, because it's the
only way they communicate with the computer. "We produced
ten models with different surface properties. A design team at
Microsoft opted for the present material. Various factors play a
role when judging the feel of the material, but the important
criteria were surface toughness and hardness," Lerch explains.
The surface material will be produced in Weiterstadt near
Darmstadt, Germany, under clean-room conditions. Surface is
to make its way into private households within about five years.
Then everyone, with computer experience or not, can dip into
the digital world and discover new realms of modern communication.
ck

Dr. Alexander Laschitsch, Evonik Röhm GmbH
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PLEXIGLAS ® the basis for this product,
is the material best suited for meeting the
stringent requirements of the projection
screen, thanks to its excellent optical and
physical properties. Together, these provide
a stable, hard-wearing yet highly sensitive
tabletop for the Surface TM . One crucial detail
at the heart of Surface TM is a rear projection
film specially developed for this application.
It provides a clear picture and ensures the
information is transmitted without errors.
“We redefined quality by
working on Surface. We are talking
about optical technologies
fit for the next millennium,
which can‘t be compared with
anything we‘ve done so far.“

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Affordance for Sitting
Naoto Fukasawa
creates PLEXIGLAS ® chair for Vitra
[Furniture Design] The PLEXIGLAS ® “Chair” by
Japanese product designer Naoto Fukasawa looks as if it were
hewn from a huge chunk of ice, transparent and clear. He himself
describes it as a “chair-like thing to sit on.” The object appears
to be melting like ice in the sun and dissolving into its environment,
caught in the act of disappearing.
When designing his objects, the designer respects people‘s
natural inclination to take what they see around them as an unconscious
invitation to act. This approach rests on the work by
perception psychologist James Jerome Gibson, who lived in the
USA from 1904 to 1979. Gibson coined the term “affordance” to
describe this characteristic of objects that offer the possibility
for action – the usability the environment offers people in a
given situation.
In 2007, Fukasawa designed the “Chair“ series for Vitra
Edition. Vitra is a design-oriented production company headquartered
in Birsfelden, Switzerland, which has developed a
wide range of furniture for offices, homes and public buildings
since 1957. But Vitra also stands for something more: a design
museum, a furniture collection, workshops and publications.
Naoto Fukasawa‘s PLEXIGLAS ® “Chair” is one of nine that
the designer created from different materials for Vitra Edition.
The chairs are meant to invite people to take a seat by responding
to natural human behavior. “They are so normal that we say
to ourselves ‘I‘d like to sit down here.‘ The only thing that can
interfere with such behavior are conscious intentions. But our
best choices are made without thinking,” the designer says.
Routed from a single block
To manufacture the PLEXIGLAS ® chair, Vitra turned to
HEINZ FRITZ Plastics Processing in Herbrechtingen, a company
that has been working with Evonik Röhm for over 50 years and
has experience with machining thick blocks. “We often work
with up to 200-mm thick PLEXIGLAS ® blocks to make glazing
for large aquariums, for example,” says Heinz Fritz. “But we
needed much thicker blocks for the PLEXIGLAS ® ‘Chair’.” So
Evonik simply laminated three 160mm blocks together. This
technique has the advantage over bonding that the joint is
barely visible. The result was a block measuring 2000 by 1200 by
515 millimeters, with a thickness of 515 millimeters. Fritz
routed the chair out of the block, sanded and polished it. “Routing
of a solid object calls for a lot of know-how and places enormous
demands on machine performance,” says Heinz Fritz. “We
have several CNC routers, the biggest being a 20-meter-long
five-axle CNC router. With that, you could even cut a sailing
boat out of one piece of material. Manual sanding of the routed
block using successively fine abrasive paper and the final
polishing of this jewel calls for extreme sensitivity to the designed
shape and the ultimate in craftsmanship.”
Wolfgang Stuber, Product Manager Acrylic Polymers BL,
adds: “Blocks are the ideal material for objects like the Fukasawa
“Chair”. The challenge for us was the required thickness.” There
“People sat down long before chairs
existed, on rocks or fallen trees. Given
certain circumstances, everyone looks
for a natural object or material to sit
on. The choice is not necessarily a
chair.“
Naoto Fukasawa
is a limit to the thickness in which polymethyl methacrylate
(PMMA) can be produced because at some point, the material
no longer cures properly. That was why three blocks were laminated
together. As Stuber says: “That can only be done with
PLEXIGLAS ® and would be impossible with glass. Fritz supplied
the missing link in this project by subsequently fabricating
the raw material. They have many years of experience with
handling blocks, whether for illuminated furniture or aquariums,
and are the ideal partners for producing this exceptional
work of art.” em
Please take a seat! The
transparent chair was
routed out of a single
block of PLEXIGLAS ® .
[Dl A]

17
Green sheets of PLEXIGLAS ® turn the sand of the riding arena at Darmstadt Technical University into a meadow.
Grazing Under a Leafy Canopy
Architecture with attitude for a historical riding arena
[Architecture] The structure made of PLEXIGLAS ® ,
wood and metal looks like a leafy canopy. The round metal
“trunks” are inserted in the ground at an angle and are irregularly
distributed. They hold up an undulating roof with triangular
transparent green PLEXIGLAS ® sheets. The architects at the 54F
agency in Darmstadt call the roof over the riding arena at Darmstadt
Technical University (TUD) the “equestrian canopy”.
“We had to come up with a very special design, otherwise the
office for the preservation of historical monuments wouldn't
have given its approval,” says 54F architect Claus Staniek. The
riding arena is located on a manorial estate that was built as a hotel
in 1907. Back then, guests arrived by horse-drawn carriage, and
required stabling. Today, the historical compound comprising
the riding stables and guesthouse belongs to the university and
is a listed building.
No chance for shoebox architecture
“In a case like ours, you can't just build a box-shaped hall.
You need really imaginative architecture,” says Staniek. A construction
project of this kind calls for a great deal of planning. It
took three calls for bids before the contractor awarded the
contract for the steel construction. Together with the municipal
authority for the preservation of historical monuments, the
architects performed a compatibility study that laid down minimum
distances to be observed between the roof, the guesthouse
and the historical stables. The fire department also had to be
consulted and granted special approvals. The nature conservation
authority paid attention to the trees surrounding the riding
arena that was to be roofed over. “Even the location of the
lamps had to be coordinated with the monuments preservation
office.” But architects are also adept at using little tricks. The
roof was therefore enlarged by adding canopies that reduced the
distance to the protected buildings without violating the regulations
on historical monuments.
Rising steel prices delayed building schedule
Most building projects become more expensive towards
the end, and the “equestrian canopy” was no exception. That
was due to the fact that the price for steel went up more than
twofold between the start of planning and the actual construction
phase. “Our project just happened to coincide with the
price hikes,” says Claus Staniek. Some of the hyperbolic paraboloid
sections were crossed off the plan, and the canopies will
now be erected in a second construction phase.
The first horses were put through their paces beneath the
new canopy in April. When the sun shines, the PLEXIGLAS ®
roof casts green shadows on the sand below. The horses like it –
some of them stand still and try to graze. smw
www.es-a.de
The equestrian canopy
seen from above: opaque,
clear-transparent and green
surfaces are interspersed to
lend an interesting play
of colors to the arena's floor.
[Dl A] ®

®
18
Bending Without Breaking
An idea gets things rolling, but an idea in itself isn‘t enough to develop a product. That is just the beginning.
What follows are strategic decisions, the search for the right composition and testing of the finished
product. This also applied to PLEXICOR ® FreeStyle, a mineral-based material that is especially easy to form.
[Product] “We are familiar with the market and develop
applications for specific requirements,” says Peter Seelmann,
Application Technology Acrylic Polymers BL. And what the
market mainly wants are innovations that are easy to fabricate
and require no time-consuming treatment to reveal their true
character. “Often, customers want to break into specific fields of
application,“ Seelmann says. “That is when we are called upon
to provide the developments that make this possible.” So when
developing materials, it is imperative to work to clearly defined
requirement profiles. That is the only way to ensure the product
provides all the expected properties.
The idea that led to the development of PLEXICOR ® FreeStyle
was initially the wish on the part of Evonik engineers for a
recyclable backmolding material for
bathtubs. When a bathtub needs to be
replaced, the conventional material,
fiberglass, presents a definite drawback –
it ends up as waste. So research at Evonik
focused on finding a material that can be
injected in liquid form behind the surface
material, where it cures and can later
be reutilized with little effort. This idea
evolved toward creating a material that
Perfectly formed in one piece: bathtubs prompted the
development of PLEXICOR ® FreeStyle.
can be used to form a bathtub without the need for any other
materials. But to achieve that goal, a few crucial steps still had to
be taken before formable PLEXICOR ® FreeStyle saw the light of
day.
Back to the lab again
Before investing time and money in developing a product,
a whole list of questions have to be answered. How is the product
meant to perform? How can it be positioned in the market?
What competitive products exist? Only when these basic conditions
have been met do decision-makers get together and list the
pros and cons of product development. If the benefits outweigh
the drawbacks, they launch the new
product.
In all, it took eighteen months for
PLEXICOR ® FreeStyle to satisfy its developers.
The raw material went through a
series of lab tests and the specimen sheets
had to be continually adjusted, until one
of them finally provided the desired results.
PLEXICOR ® FreeStyle has much
better thermoforming properties than
[Dl A]

®
19
previous mineral-based materials and can be produced as very
large sheets. That makes them suitable for large surface areas
without the need for bonding. Nor is there any need for sanding,
as with other solid-surface products. The surface retains its
velvety feel after fabrication and is highly skid-resistant, homogenous
and smooth. These aspects are especially important in
sanitary ware and spa facilities, as well as in hospitals.
Worth the effort
The characteristic thermoforming properties of
PLEXICOR ® FreeStyle were a major challenge for its developers.
“To start with, the material was very brittle,“ Seelmann says.
“That led to stress whitening, like the fracture line when the cap
of a plastic ballpoint pen breaks off.”
Incorporation of the pigment – a type of rock meal that
forms the core of PLEXICOR ® FreeStyle – also gave developers a
few sleepless nights to begin with. Instead of being evenly distributed
throughout the polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) base
material, the pigment settled at the bottom. The FreeStyle inventors
then used emulsifiers to mix the substances according
to specifications.
Now the finished product has joined the existing
PLEXICOR ® range and makes it possible to manufacture washstands,
washbasins and towel rails, event counters in discothèques
and other items of designer furniture all in one piece.
“Using PLEXICOR ® FreeStyle means time savings of 75 to 80
percent as compared with conventional mineral-based
material,” Seelmann says. Thanks to its easy handling, the
material offers designers many unusual ideas. “FreeStyle is the
first solid-surface product to give them complete freedom,” the
expert says. “Now they can realize their three-dimensional
designs from one piece of material.” tml
www.plexiglas.net
“Using PLEXICOR ® FreeStyle means time savings of 75 to 80 percent as compared
with conventional mineral-based material. FreeStyle is the first solid-surface
product to give designers complete freedom. Now they can realize their
three-dimensional designs from one piece of material.“
Peter Seelmann, Application Technology Acrylic Polymers BL
[Dl A]

20
Generously designed: Visitors and passengers at the new Pudong Airport need guidance. Illuminated signs made of PLEXIGLAS ® EndLighten
show the way and save energy.
Follow the Signs
Pudong Airport points the way to the future
[Information Design] China
has invested EUR 350 billion in its traffic
infrastructure in the space of five years,
an amount unparalleled by any other
country in so short a time. According to
the German Office for Foreign Trade
(bfai), the funds are being used from
2006 to 2010 to build and expand the
network of roads, railroads and harbors.
The Chinese Government wants to prevent
a deficient infrastructure from slowing
the country's economic advancement.
Air traffic in China is already growing at a double-digit rate every
year, but compared with other continental nations like India and Brazil,
the Far Eastern land has far too few airports. Large sums amounting to
US$ 18 billion are therefore being invested in constructing new airports
and expanding existing ones by 2010.
Passengers arriving at Terminal 2 of Pudong International Airport in
the eastern Chinese metropolis of Shanghai can quickly find their bearings.
Illuminated signs made of PLEXIGLAS ® guide passengers on all four
levels of the 480,000 m 2 building complex safely to their destination, from
the gate to baggage retrieval and passport control and then to the
exit with taxi ranks, bus stops or the railroad station. To make it easier
for guests to find their way, the levels
have been divided up similarly to the
existing Terminal 1. There is one level for
international departures, one for international
arrivals, one for domestic
departures and arrivals, and one for restaurants
and stores. An intuitive, peopleoriented
guidance system has been
chosen. That is important, because the
annual capacity of Pudong Airport
jumped from 20 to 60 million passengers
when Terminal 2 was opened last March.
[Dl A] ®

21
This put Pudong among the world's biggest commercial airports.
First comes Atlanta (USA), with 89 million passengers a
year. The biggest Asian airport is Tokyo-Haneda (Japan) with 66
million, and in Europe, London Heathrow (UK) is the most
heavily frequented airport that receives 68 million passengers
per year. Without a reliable guidance system, travelers at these
huge airports would soon become very disgruntled indeed.
Small, bright and energy-efficient
The signs therefore have to meet high requirements, as
designer Xiongxiong Lin at the XIAMEN QUNLI company explains:
“They have to be easy to see, bright and evenly lit. But
they also have to be energy-efficient and take up a minimum of
space.” There was a lot of competition for a contract of this size,
Lin adds: “Finally, we were chosen because we succeeded in
combining good lighting results and low energy consumption
better than our rivals.” For the signs, Lin opted for a construction
method that he says is new for Chinese airports: “Our signs
are only lit via the edges. We can do that by using sheets of
PLEXIGLAS ® EndLighten.” PLEXIGLAS ® EndLighten is a lightdiffusing
grade of transparent acrylic (PMMA) with special
light-guiding behavior. The sheets can be edge-lit and distribute
the light evenly across the surface. “The advantage is we
only have to install light sources along the edges. With conventional
acrylic, we had to backlight the entire sheet. That of
course took a lot more light sources and used more energy,” Lin
explains. Edge lighting therefore cuts the power requirements.
Lin adds: “We can save up to 50 percent electricity. Given the
large number of light boxes and rising energy prices, that will
really pay off in the future.”
Innovative, visionary
and well-visited
PLEXIGLAS ® EndLighten XL
The employed grade of material,
PLEXIGLAS ® EndLighten XL, is
10mm thick. This thickness allows
much more light to be fed in as
compared with 6 or 8mm thick
sheets. Despite their size, the
signs are evenly lit. Thinner sheets
would allow the light to exit too
fast and lead to uneven lighting.
PLEXIGLAS ® EndLighten grade XL
ensures the optimum light
emission of the signs.
Pudong Airport is set to
handle two superlative events
( the Olympic Summer Games
2008 in Peking and the
World's Fair Expo 2010 in
Shanghai). For the World's
Fair alone, the airport operators
are expecting 24 million
additional passengers. In preparation, construction of Terminal
2 started at the end of 2005. But even without these two major
events, Pudong is the destination of more and more national
and international flights. According to the plans of the Chinese
aviation authority, Pudong Airport is to become one of three
nationwide air traffic hubs. That is another reason why Shanghai's
infrastructure is being expanded so fast. In many places,
cutting-edge technology is being used, like the new 150km
magnetic levitation (maglev) train line from Shanghai to
Hangzhou. Lin sees this as a parallel to the signs at Pudong Airport:
“Here too, innovative technology has asserted itself. Both
the light-guiding behavior of PLEXIGLAS ® EndLighten and the
high-performance T5 neon tubes are absolutely state-of-theart.”
Lin explains how the light boxes are made: “Boxes with a
width of 450 millimeters only need one T5 neon tube at the top
edge of the PLEXIGLAS ® EndLighten sheet. All light boxes of
greater width are provided with a second T5 tube at the lower
edge of the sheet.” Edge lighting means the boxes can be very
slim. Lin: “They are only 60mm thick, which gives them an upto-the-minute
appearance.” They also fit seamlessly into the
modern architecture of the building. That is also important
because it means they are intuitively perceived by the viewer.
The signs guide passengers to their destination and more than
that, point the way to the future. hf
[Dl A] ®

22
Luxury Container with a Special View
Old shipping containers, PLEXIGLAS ® as construction material for detached homes
[Architecture] In import countries like the USA, the
volume of foreign goods brought into the country greatly exceeds
exports of domestic products. This poses logistics problems.
Last year alone, according to CNN, seven million shipping
containers reached the American continent, but only two and
half million left the country again. The areas around U.S. harbors
show the results – 4.5 million shipping containers that nobody
wants.
Nobody except the Pirkl family and the architects at De-
Maria Designs in Manhattan Beach, California. In view of rising
construction costs, the team there had a brilliant idea. Eight of
the unused shipping containers were coated white with a ceramic
alloy developed for NASA, insulated against weathering
and put together with an artistic eye to form a house. One essential
construction element is PLEXIGLAS ® . The result is a modern
eye-catcher with clean lines that takes advantage of the different
properties of PLEXIGLAS ® products.
Transparent windows measuring about 2.5 square meters
grace two piled-up containers that form a prominent part of the
front of the house. The unusual shape of the containers made it
impossible to use commercially available glass windows. Polycarbonate
was considered, but was dropped again because standard
polycarbonate turns yellow upon permanent exposure to
UV radiation.
DeMaria Designs used PLEXIGLAS ® for the panoramic
windows. “The material creates the impression that there is another
window floating inside the actual window,” explains Peter
DeMaria. At night, this impression turns into a lighting effect
because the indoor lighting creates a gentle glow. Beside the impressive
optical effect, a number of practical reasons prompted
the choice of this material. PLEXIGLAS ® filters 67 percent of UV
radiation and therefore protects the furniture and carpets near
the windows. The material's low weight compared with conventional
glass was another major benefit, and it can also be machined
on site using a diamond-tipped saw.
The sound insulation of PLEXIGLAS ® double-skin sheets
convinced Sven and Anna Pirkl to use the material for the main
bedroom windows. The same colorless material was used for
paneling the staircase due to the light diffusion through its
webs. “In the evening, the staircase is outlined on the wall segments,
producing an almost dramatic effect,” enthuses DeMaria.
The path leading to the patio and garden is another highlight
of the container house. It has a gate that reminds one of the
entrance to a hangar, but it is also transparent and therefore simultaneously
acts as a window from which any stray football
bounces off without making a dent. This very special passage
does not open up vertically but is lifted up horizontally by a system
something like that of an electric garage door.
A ninth container originally stood in the garden. Since the
Pirkl family could not move into their new house until mid-August
2007, but had already sold their old house, this container
sheltered most of their furniture. Once the house has been completely
furnished, the container is to be sunk into the ground.
Then it only needs to be filled with water and hey presto, you
have an instant swimming pool. tml
[Dl A] ®

®
23
“The material creates the
impression that there is
another window floating
inside the actual window.“
Peter DeMaria
[Dl A]

Credits:
[DIA] ® Design in Acrylics
This is a publication of the
Acrylic Polymers Business Line of
Evonik Industries
[DIA] ® Design in Acrylics
is published three times a year by:
Evonik Röhm GmbH
Acrylic Polymers Business Line
Kirschenallee
D-64293 Darmstadt
Germany
Phone +49-6151-18-01
Fax +49-6151-18-02
www.plexiglas.net
www.design-in-acrylics.com
Please send notice of changes in address to:
design-in-acrylics@evonik.com
Edited by: Profilwerkstatt,
64295 Darmstadt, Germany
Phone +49-6151-599020
www.profilwerkstatt.de
Editors in Chief:
Dr. Ulrich Kläres,
Performance Polymers Business Unit
(responsible under Journalists’ Law)
Susanne Diehl,
Acrylic Polymers Business Line
Martina Keller, Profilwerkstatt
Dr. Claudia Klemm, Profilwerkstatt
English Translation: Mitzi Morgan
Art Direction: Holger Giebeler
Typesetting/Layout: Profilwerkstatt
Managing Editor: Ralf Ansorge
Printed by: Zarbock GmbH & Co. KG, Frankfurt
Printed on paper bleached without chlorine.
Photos:
54f architekten + ingenieure (Darmstadt),
Photographer: Thomas Ott (Mühltal), p. 17
Evonik Röhm GmbH, cover page, pp. 6, 9, 18,
19, 20, 21, 22, 23.
Harrison, James, p. 10
Lignum Arts, cover page, pp. 3, 4
Microsoft, cover page, pp. 12–15
Profilwerkstatt, p. 7
SAP, p. 11
Soyons Fou, p. 7
Vitra, Titel, p. 16
Wildhirt, Stefan pp. 8, 9
Evonik’s Performance Polymers Business Unit is
a worldwide supplier of PMMA semifinished
products sold under the PLEXIGLAS ®
trademark on the European, Asian,
African and Australian Continents and under
the trademarks ACRYLITE ® , DEGLAS ® ,
PARAGLAS SOUND STOP ® and ROHAGLAS ® in the
Americas.
®
= registered trademark
DiA, PLEXIGLAS and PLEXICOR
are registered trademarks of
Evonik Röhm GmbH, Darmstadt, Germany.
ACRYLITE is a registered trademark of
Evonik Cyro LLC, Rockaway, NJ, USA.
This information and all further technical advice is
based on our present knowledge and
experience. However, it implies no liability or
other legal responsibility on our part, also with regard
to existing third party intellectual
property rights, especially patent rights. In
particular, no warranty, whether express or
implied, or guarantee of product properties in the
legal sense is intended or implied. We
reserve the right to make any changes according
to technological progress or further developments.
The customer is not released from the obligation
to conduct careful inspection and
testing of incoming goods.
Performance of the product described herein
should be verified by testing, which should be carried
out only by qualified experts in the sole responsibility
of a customer. Reference to trade
names used by other companies is neither a
recommendation, nor does it imply that similar
products could not be used.
(Status: May 2003)