c--c | glass with a twist

c--c

During the last year we have developed a building component which helps constructing curved walls from glass. Essentially we have enhanced the profile of channel glass – a rolled glass product which is in production since decades. The new shape makes brittle glass fit for any sort of curve.

More on the underlying idea is found on the project website. Here's a few images, illustrating our usage of Grasshopper in the project. It would have been pretty tedious to build all these arrays by hand...No need to stop with straight elements: Extrusion variants for more complex scenarios.

Using a library of standard parts on may compute the best approximation to arbitrary shapes.

This gif obviously is cutting corners, as it doesn't work with a limited library but generates the perfect part on the fly.

Here's a a more realistic, albeit random combination of straight elements with tapered and twisted parts.

Making Of

Glass bending device inside a Fusing Kiln

If you're not so much into conceptual stuff + looking at digital renderings but rather enjoy the practical side of things: Here finally is the documentation of the prototype building process, with kilns, glooming glass, singed eyebrows and All (image heavy content, might need a bit to load).

The product concept was exhibited at Glasstec and BAU2015.