STRUCTURAL GLASS FACADES - USC School of Architecture

presentations on the technology usually have Canadian architects and engineers champing
at the bit to get started.”
“You can’t order a kit from Canadian Tire,” says Boulanger. “They are highly personalized to the
project. Many architects are very excited by these structures, engineers are warming up to them,
manufacturers are starting to adapt their pricing and specialty erectors are emerging. It will just
take a slight cultural shift before we see such projects built here.”
The examples above exhibit a common trend. The luxury of window glass by the Romans
became a commodity item in 18 th century Europe. Christopher Wren’s premium glass had a
maximum dimension of approximately 30 inches; today’s commodity float glass is commonly
produced at 130 inches. Fin-supported glass walls introduced in the mid 20 th century have
become commonplace in the architecture of today. These products were introduced to the
market as cutting-edge technology and were embraced in limited applications at a premium
cost. They all subsequently matured as applications increased and costs dropped. The same
can be expected to happen to varying extents with all the structural glass façade types,
including cable nets. There will always be innovative custom designs incorporating these
various technologies that will come at a premium cost, but the basic technology in a
simplified form will become more competitive in cost and come into wider use in the building
arts.
Wren, Bernard, Childs and Carpenter are what Everett Rogers (2003), the author of a theory
on the diffusion of innovation in culture, would call “early adopters.” Early adopters in this
instance are wealthy clients; individuals, enterprises or institutions, seeking the status of
innovation and high technology as part of their building program. They typically seek out
other early adopters, design innovators known for their work with the emergent technology.
These early adopters are a very small percentage of the larger design community, as their
clients are a similarly small percentage of the property development community. As can be
seen, the early adopters and their projects tend to be very high-profile, very visible to the rest
of the construction industry, and even the general public. There is another tier of designers
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