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STRUCTURAL GLASS FACADES - USC School of Architecture

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designing and producing a fitting. Now there are at least a dozen companies worldwide<br />

<strong>of</strong>fering <strong>of</strong>f-the-shelf glass-fixing components <strong>of</strong> amazing variety.<br />

1.4.5 The Project Constituents<br />

The core constituents involved in a structural glass façade project are the owner/developer,<br />

architect, building engineer, and perhaps a façade consultant and/or a specialty consultant<br />

dealing solely with the structural glass façade. Owner/developers have been exposed to the<br />

work <strong>of</strong> the innovators and early adopters, and are increasingly interested and amenable to<br />

considering the use <strong>of</strong> structural glass façade technology, generally within some budgetary<br />

context. The building engineer is important in managing the interface between the structural<br />

glass façade and the perimeter support provided by the building structure.<br />

Today, the primary driver <strong>of</strong> the diffusion <strong>of</strong> this technology into the broader marketplace is<br />

the design work coming out <strong>of</strong> the architect’s <strong>of</strong>fices. The innovators and early adopters<br />

typically introduce their client, the owner/developer, to the technology and convince them <strong>of</strong><br />

incorporating some aspect into a building design. This group <strong>of</strong> innovators and early<br />

adopters is relatively small; the body <strong>of</strong> completed works is largely from the same small<br />

group <strong>of</strong> practitioners. This group is comprised largely <strong>of</strong> architectural <strong>of</strong>fices with deep<br />

resources including façade designers, industrial designers and even engineers on staff.<br />

Such firms as Foster Associates, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, SOM, Murphy Jahn<br />

Architects, have the resources internal to the firm to generate highly sophisticated structural<br />

glass façade designs.<br />

The most effective way to diffuse the technology into the marketplace is to enable another<br />

tier <strong>of</strong> adopter, arguably secondary adopters. Many structural glass façade projects have<br />

featured prominently in the media over recent years, spawning much interest in the design<br />

community. There are many architects interested in using the technology and confronting<br />

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