Engineered Transparency Glass in Architecture and Structural Engineering Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall GSAPP, Columbia University September 26, 27 + 28, 2007 Convened by Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), Columbia University Mark Wigley, Dean Michael Bell, Professor, Conference Chair Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Columbia University Christian Meyer, Chair and Professor Institute of Building Construction, Technische Universität Dresden Bernhard Weller, Director and Professor The conference will be accompanied by the exhibition Through Glass Curated by Rosana Rubio-Hernandez On display in Avery Hall, 200 level September 24 — October 12 After its role in the last century’s call to a radical new architecture and urban life, glass architecture is today more ubiquitous than ever. A highly engineered product, glass has emerged in a new light as an apparently culturally accepted material in design and construction. Its new incarnation, however, reveals a virtually new product replacing the glass used even twenty years ago. The innovations are observable and have direct use. Offering new modes of visual pleasure and spatial experience to building occupants—glass has also been the beneficiary of major advances in engineering that are decidedly less visible—structural innovations, new control and design engineering at the level of optics, thermal properties, and expanded fabrication limits as well as installation methods have quietly reconfigured the extent and reach of glass applications. We are so continually surrounded by such discretely functioning glass that we do not even see it. This interdisciplinary conference aims to bring an ordinarily extraordinary material back before our eyes. WEDnesday SEPTEMBER 26 6:30–8:00 PM Welcoming Remarks and Introduction Mark Wigley Dean, GSAPP, Columbia University Welcoming Remarks from Oldcastle Glass Keynote Lecture Kazuyo Sejima Architect, SAnAA, Tokyo THURSDAy SEPTEMBER 27 10:00–10:30 AM 10:30 AM–12:00 PM 12:00–1:30 PM 1:30–3:00 PM 3:15–5:00 PM 5:00–6:00 PM Introductions Is Glass Still Glass? Break Connections: Visual and Mechanical Glass at the Limits The Near and Far Futures of Glass Mark Wigley Moderator: Michael Bell Moderator: Kenneth Frampton Moderator: Antoine Picon Moderator: Mark Wigley Dean, GSAPP, Columbia University Professor of Architecture, GSAPP, Ware Professor of Architecture, GSAPP, Professor of the History of Architecture Dean, GSAPP, Columbia University Michael Bell Columbia University Columbia University and Technology, Graduate School of Design, Professor of Architecture, GSAPP, Harvard University The technical limits of glass seem to have Columbia University In its early 20th-century appearances, Evolutions in the fabrication of glass and reached a new plateau: is it still possible Christian Meyer glass architecture—in designs by Walter its mechanical components—framing In an era of ubiquitous and inexpensive to consider glass architecture a frontier Chair and Professor, Gropius or Mies van der Rohe, or writings systems, gaskets, adhesives, sealants, as global communications and increasingly project for the new generation of architects Department of Civil Engineering by Paul Scheerbart—was both fact and well as assembly procedures and poten- expensive energy costs, what are the and engineers? Or do its ultimate material and Engineering Mechanics, metaphor. A signal of cultural and material tials—have re-written the curtain wall and critical implications for glass in building over limits; in bending, stress and strain, cost, Columbia University production in major upheaval, it promised its application in building. In the course the next decade? Will energy issues force energy loss, modularity, and seeming stand- Bernhard Weller a new if not radically altered interior world of doing so there has been a steadily a major change in transparent architecture? ardization require a new mode of seeing Director and Professor, and a new relation to production. revised but open-ended discussion about Have concepts of transparency, so fully glass architecture as inevitably embedded Institute of Building Construction, Does glass architecture still signify the cultural aspects of the transparent embedded in architectural theory and in a new stratum of capital-intensive and Techische Universität Dresden cultural transition; do the depth of engineer- building. What are the new connections history, been dislocated to new modes ubiquitous building materials? Is glass now ing and the control of risk in new work in glass architecture—both visual and of transparency? Have newly mobilized a fully conventional material? reduce or enlarge the cultural project of mechanical—that have allowed this new forms of mathematics unlocked programs How have the roles material plays in glass today? Is glass still glass? reach for architecture and how do they of information transparency, self-generated design changed and to what extent can Typically associated with either the affect your work? and navigated forms of media, new forms we consider any material extraordinary architectural innovations of the 1920s of community made architectural trans- today, when we extended the capability or the recent technical and decidedly James Carpenter parency. Does architecture have a chance to engineer material performance and to global innovations tied to energy is- Architect, James Carpenter Design to affect these conditions? reduce risk? sues, new coatings, and new adhesion Associates, new york City What are the new limits of glass—as techniques, glass architecture has—like Guy Nordenson technical instrument or social and Steven Holl many aspects of high-end, capital-in- Professor of Structural Engineering, political metaphor? Professor of Architecture, GSAPP, tensive building products—ceased to School of Architecture, Columbia University be as anything less than inevitable. new Princeton University Beatriz Colomina Werner Sobek work in architecture and engineering is François Roche Professor, School of Architecture, Engineer, Werner Sobek Engineering by now seemingly expected to conflate Professor of Architecture, GSAPP, Princeton University and Design, Stuttgart aesthetic aims with engineering goals. Columbia University Elizabeth Diller Professor of Architecture, Has the very understanding of glass Architect, R&Sie(n), Paris Architect, Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, University of Stuttgart changed from a politically radical material Hans Schober new york to a financially conventional building Engineer, Shlaich Bergermann Matthias Schuler Reception product? and Partner, Stuttgart Engineer, TRAnSSOLAR, Stuttgart Bernhard Weller Roberto Bicchiarelli Director and Professor, Executive Vice President, Permasteelisa Institute of Building Construction, Cladding Technologies, LP Technische Universität Dresden Laurie Hawkinson Professor of Architecture, GSAPP, Columbia University Reinhold Martin Professor of Architecture, GSAPP, Columbia University Detlef Mertins Professor and Chair, Department of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania 8 9 FRIDAy SEPTEMBER 28 9:30–11:00 AM 11:15 AM–12:30 PM 12:30 PM–2:00 PM 2:00–3:15 PM 3:30–5:00 PM Structural Glass, Structure and Glass Optics and Climate Engineering Break New Materials/Conversion of Light Security, Safety, and Blast Loading would have us re-write glass as an act of Moderator: Richard L. Tomasetti Moderator: Joan Ockman Moderator: Scott Marble Moderator: Michael Bell securing stability rather than up-ending it. Engineer, Thornton Tomasetti, Inc., Director, Temple Hoyne Buell Center for Professor of Architecture, GSAPP, Professor of Architecture, GSAPP, What are the new means of increas- new york the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University Columbia University ing—or sustaining—glass applications in GSAPP, Columbia University security situations? How do we evaluate Conventional goals for installation of glass During the early 1990s a shift in direction Moderator: Christian Meyer these in the context of the historical have isolated and maintained the brittle The economic impact of recent environ- occurred in architectural design that Chair and Professor, Department of Civil themes of glass as brittle and indeed material in conditions that assure minimal mental energy savings laws has usually began to place greater emphasis on Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, fragile? intrusion of stress and strain. Today, new been understood for overt if not linear the performance capabilities of building Columbia University means of testing and modeling loading, decreases in energy consumption. yet the materials—indeed the performance capa- Albrecht Burmeister and of verifying the effects of the be- emergence of a new standard of climate bilities of architecture in its widest sense. Impact loadings have been a concern of Engineer, DELTA-X, Stuttgart havior of integral systems on each other engineering also has produced architec- Decades of academic work that relied the engineering community for decades, H. Scott Norville have allowed more dynamic interaction of tures that are efficient but not decidedly on theories of meaning often taken from in particular in those geographic regions Professor and Chair, Department of comprehensive ensembles of structure, driven to reducing consumption so much linguistic criticism have been increasingly that regularly experience hurricanes and Civil and Environmental Engineering, glass, and framing systems. This panel as