Contemporary Architectural Glass:Reconsideration of Materiality

摘要

In Contemporary architecture glass is no longer used as a single piece for the exterior envelope with a variety of influences such as performance regulations, market environment and technical developments. An architectural wall today is always a 'system' wall, not a single plane glass wall. Thus, there are cases that materiality of an individual glass is not appropriate for the exterior envelope in the urban settings. The materiality of glass should be examined as a system.A new materiality comes from analyzing interactions between layers constituting a system. This paper examines the experimental use of glass systems in contemporary architecture, and analyzes them to interpret the relationship between layers of each system to establish the diversified materiality of glass in contemporary architecture.