STRUCTURAL GLASS FACADES - USC School of Architecture

This allows the architect and the building owner to take advantage of the efficiencies of mass
production and the economies of scale. There is the potential for a similar advantage with
structural glass facades. The biggest opportunity is with the glass grid; to the extent that the
glass grid can be made uniform, overall cost will be reduced, sometimes quite significantly.
The objective is to minimize geometric complexity that is not integral to the design intent,
and thus reduce incidental part differentiation. A large diversity of small quantity components
increases complexity, which in turn increases cost. This phenomenon has both overt and
subtle aspects; a grid design that generates a large number of one-of-a-kind glass sizes
because of a geometrically complex interface will add to the cost of the glass supply, but it
will also impact design and installation costs, perhaps more significantly. Automated
fabrication processes can do much to mitigate the cost of high component diversity. Design
processes can similarly be developed to mitigate design related costs. But this diversity must
still be managed, handled, shipped and sorted through the process until each one-off
component finds its designated place in the building. The resulting field costs are especially
difficult to mitigate.
A reflection of the relevance of this is found in a comment made by Wigginton on Foster’s
Willis Faber & Dumas Building, a project cited repeatedly in this thesis and in fact
representing the birth of structural glass façade technology as defined herein. Wigginton
(1996, p.110-115) provides an excellent case study of this suspended glass façade and
comments, “…the rigour [sic] of the architects required that each panel was the same size,
which is something of a challenge in a meandering glass wall without the benefit of cover
strips.” Even double-curved cable nets, whose geometry will assure a high diversity of glass
panel configurations, can benefit from a design emphasis on exploring ways to minimize the
occurrence unnecessary component diversity. The diversity is sometimes important to the
design and the client is willing to pay for it. Many times however, the complexity is
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