Bridging Modern Art, Graphic Design, and Glass Interior Design
July 20, 2011 by Kris Vockler · Leave a Comment
A fresh batch of outstanding project photos just arrived from a customer of ours in Hong Kong. What I’m about to show you is just a sneak peek of a new interior design ebook we are publishing. I just couldn’t wait; I had to show something. If you like this, you will die when you see the new ebook. This goes to show how versatile one can get with ICD’s products. By creating single decorative art glass pieces or production-line art anyone can have in their home.
Our customer in Hong Kong is extremely innovative in using glass for interiors. Since the cost to ship goods from there to most other places in the world is so high, they are happy to share the general idea of how they do things. What I love is how one can mix various art and graphic design styles, such as art deco and russian constructivism to add specific style to a project.
Most fabricators who use ICD’s products can do this same style of work. The only key is matching the right product to the right effect:
- Use DecoVas screen print ink and various screens to achieve the first design prints. Then back-paint with compatible AquaVue in spray or roller coater. Correction: AquaVue is currently a single color coating for glass and not a suitable back-paint for a lite already printed with DecoVas. Due to DecoVas being a modified silicone, at this time the only suitable back-paint is to use the OPACI-COAT-300 product. OPACI-COAT-300 has been in the market for over 25 years as both a spandrel coating and interior wall cladding coating.
- Use OPACI-COAT-500 screen print ink on the same various screen prints, then back-paint with OPACI-COAT-300.
- Add metallic pigments to either the design or back-paint process to add incredible depth and added metal medium effect.
Often established markets such as North American and Europe can get “stuck” in producing large production runs of the same color or process. If you have screen print machine and spray or roller coater capabilities, you have what it takes to make high value original art of create extreme value added production-run work.
What other art or graphic design movements do you think lend well to this style of medium?
Silicone spandrel and frit spandrel are the same thing right? Part III “Spandrel In a Vision Area”
January 29, 2010 by Kris Vockler · Leave a Comment
Same use but vastly different in not only application but composition, meaning many energy saving and environmental benefits.
OPACI-COAT Vs. Ceramic Enamel
Ceramic Frit vs OPACI-COAT-300/500® |
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| CERAMIC FRIT | OPACI-COAT-300/500® | |
| Ceramic clay applied to glass is heated to 1,100°F(600°C) and becomes fused to the glass. | 50% silicone, 50% water solution is sprayed, roller coated or curtain coated onto glass and dried by evaporation of water (either ambient or oven) curing the silicone to the surface of the glass. | |
| Unlimited, because the frit is fused to the glass. | Unlimited. Silicones have an excellent track record in construction. OPACI-COAT-300/500® has been in use for more than twenty years. | |
| Ceramic frit does not break down when exposed to ultraviolet rays. | OPACI-COAT-300/500® does not break down when exposed to ultraviolet rays. | |
| Ceramic frit has noability to help glass remain in an opening when broken. | Silicone bonds with the glass and will hold broken glass in an opening when applied at a wet film thickness of 13 mils. | |
| Cannot be repaired if frit surface is damaged. | Silicone surface can be repaired in the field if scratched, or touched up if coverage has noticeable light areas from the exterior. | |
| Matches very well with dark colors. Can have noticeable lines or streaks in light colors. Most reds and yellows are impossible. | Exceptional color matching capabilities (including reds and yellows) with 3 day lead times on most sample and production orders. | |
| Contains solvents and other heavy metals that create hazardous materials disposal concerns. | Does not contain any environmentally hazardous ingredients. No lead or heavy metals. We are Green! | |
| 5 years by fabricator | 10 years | |
| Ceramic frit cannot be applied to the reflective surface of the glass. | OPACI-COAT-300/500® may be applied to wide variety of reflective as well as pyrolitic glass surfaces. | |
What is Spandrel, Vision Glass, and the Difference Between Frit and Silicone? (3 Post Series) Part I
Most Overheard Questions About Spandrel Part II “Can I Put It In A Vision Area?” Part II
What is Spandrel, Vision Glass, and the Difference Between Frit and Silicone? (3 Post Series)
January 6, 2010 by Kris Vockler · 1 Comment
Ok, so this started out as one post but grew so much, it had to become a 3-part series. The most common questions we hear about our spandrel coatings are:
#1 What is Spandrel?
#2 Can I put Spandrel in a vision area of a building?
#3 Silicone spandrel and frit spandrel are the same thing right?
Those are indeed the top three questions I get about spandrel, the little known part of a glass building that can have the greatest aesthetic impact.
PART I – What Is Spandrel?
Definition:
span-drel [span-druhl] – noun
- Architecture. an area between the extradoses of two adjoining arches
- 2. (in a steel-framed building) a panel-like area between the head of a window on one level and the sill of a window immediately above.
Meh huh, what?
The origin of the word spandrel comes from the 1400’s as an architecture term to describe the space between two arches, as in the illustration below. It’s that arch between the arches, in this photo, where the two women reside. It’s spanning the distance between the arches and helping to give structural support.
- Courtesy http://danceswithanxiety.blogspot.com/
Somewhere along the line of history, architects or the glass industry took the word spandrel and applied to to an all glass building. If you look at the photo below, you can see where the office area would be and a shorter glass level under that. This is spandrel and it’s a level of glass that is opaque and colored, which also hides the electrical and mechanical areas between the floors of a building.
To opacify the glass, one of several products can or have been used; ceramic enamel, silicone elastomers, urethanes, films, etc. In fact, when we started ICD, the three big spandrel coatings were ceramic enamel, inexpensive urethanes, and polyester film. Around 15 years ago, due to many performance and cost issues, polyester films suddenly ceased being used. The hole left from that was filled by the two next most popular coatings, ceramic enamel and silicone (or more specifically OPACI-COAT-300).
Ceramic enamel is a very viable way to opacify glass and has had a very long history in doing so. The product is a coating that used to be sprayed on glass (and still can be in some areas), but today is roller coated or screen printed, run through a drying oven (flashing off volatiles) and then run through a tempering oven. In which the coating is fused to the glass and the glass is heat treated at the same time. To do this, the components of the coating have to withstand very high temperatures (such as heavy metals, organic pigments that have carbon in them will burn up and those temperatures). Great advancements have been made in the last few years to help make enamel more green but it still suffers due to having to use temperature resistant components.
Fast forward to today and we have ceramic enamel, silicone and to a smaller extent urethanes, acrylics and panel systems. There are some big differences between the two most used products; enamel and silicone.
So, to sum up what “spandrel” is to a building, it’s the opaque and colored section of glass between the office floors in an all glass clad building, often hiding the mechanical components of the building. I should add one more bit, due to the increases in high transmittance and high reflectance glasses today, architects can now use the spandrel cavity as either color accent or pick colors for the glass to harmonize with the vision glass. Neato!
I’ve also heard that it’s a military missile as well. =\
To Be Continued with PART II “Can I put Spandrel in a Vision Area?”
LEED™ Certification, Green Building, And the Next Step
December 7, 2009 by Kris Vockler · 2 Comments
The first time I heard the term “sustainable” in regards to building, was in the last part of my college career. Eventually I had found myself working in the recycling programs of the Urban Studies Department at Portland State University, Doug McKenzie-Mohr and his book “Fostering Sustainable Behavior” was the hot topic for us academic types. It was an exciting time but peppered with the though, can we ever get the general population to discuss sustainable practices. Fast forward an undisclosed amount of time (let’s leave my age out of this), enough time to go by and be able to say; “Back in the Day”. Here we are in 2009 and “sustainable” is a buzz-word, along with “recycle” and “conservation”; for someone who started out her adult eduction and career with an idealistic environmental thought, it’s truly a good time to be living in. The fruits of our labors and all that.
LEED™ Certifications are helping architects, designers, and building owners make smarter more sustainable decisions about their properties. Which in turn has spawned new “green” products to help attain higher LEED™ Certifications on buildings. Pop the banners, light the fireworks, we made it…….wait, let’s not turn the music up yet. I admit, we have come a very long way in social consciousness that would lead us to today and our greater understanding of how we are all connected on the Earth. But what are we missing?
We are missing one of the key components in my mind, which is also a key item that the US Green Building Council and LEED™ wish to leave out of the equation. The components themselves are left out of the program. Meaning, for those who are not aware, LEED™ Certification is for the buildings and awarded to a building for how well certain practices were employed to have created or have in an existing building. It’s a huge jump in conservation as commercial buildings, for example, are one of the largest bleeders of energy we have on the planet.
So why then is it a big deal to leave the products or components out of the certification process? Let’s look at paints and coatings for example, points are awarded towards the overall certification level of a building by how low a coating is in Volatile Organic Content (VOC’s) once it is in place in the building. A manufacturer could attack this in many ways; create a no VOC coating, a low VOC coating, or even a coating that the VOC’s leave Über quickly and won’t evolve off any more than minutes after application (this one is a bit far fetched but you get the point). Let’s take the best example, a No VOC coating, points could be awarded because no VOC’s left the paint in the building that could have led to inhabitants getting sick from the fumes. That’s a sweet deal, I’ve smelled paint fumes, not fun.
I then ask you, why do we not care how green or healthy the manufacturing of that product was? That No VOC coating might have been nasty to make and not only the process could harm the environment but could be putting the workers who made it in danger. But since there wasn’t a provision for ensuring that part of the process was Green, we will never know.
Hmmm……..
(I know that there are product certification processes out there, none of which tie into or help one decide what to use in a building, sounds like a novel idea, no?)
PICTURE: The picture in the post is of The Casey, a luxury Condo project in Portland, Oregon. Which is in the process of attaining a Platinum certification, they can enjoy not only a coating on the glass to help them attain points but they can rest assured that the manufacturing of that paint (OPACI-COAT-300® Water Based Silicone Spandrel for Glass) was made with the greatest care for the environment and worker alike.
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This is a web log (blog), it is simply the opinions and thoughts of the Author and not necessarily those of her employer. Although, she would strive to not anger or misrepresent her employer or her customers for that matter. But again, this is an online blog and the opinions are all hers. You might want to prepare your grain of salt. :P
Blog Contributors
CEO of ICD High Performance Coatings, from chemist to marketing and operations.
Sales Manager & Architect Specialist of ICD High Performance Coatings.