Modern Facades made of Glass

Glass as a building material is used in a multitude of new applications like modern glass facades. Glass facades have to fulfil basic aspects like protection against climatic influence and environmental pollution, protection against fire and burglary. Important points in these times are a contribution to a positive energy balance.

In this paper different types of facades, which can be used for small buildings just as for high rise tall buildings are presented; second facades, point fixed glazing, sound panels and facades with channel shaped glass are shown. In the field of point fixtures many different kind of fittings (with bore holes, without bore holes, undercut anchors) are possible for different applications of facades. An important field is the rehabilitation of old buildings with a new façade to get buildings with a positive energy balance and a low CO2 emission.

For the presented façade-types technical aspects like principle design rules and static calculation of glass are presented. Depending on the façade type the design requires a high knowledge of the engineer.

Finally some build examples like the high-rise building “Münchner Tor”, the façade of the theatre “Kammerspiele München” and some examples from Europe with point fixtures are presented.