Coating on Demand: we make your signature unique
Selecting the glass for large-scale building projects is not easy, as the range of coated glass on the market is not unlimited and rarely fits the project’s exact needs in colour and performance specs. What if architects could create their own custom glass, tailor-made for the building of their dreams? Your Dreams, Our Challenge! That is AGC’s baseline, and we were glad to take on the challenge.
AGC needed first to develop a process to allow architects to define their exact glazing needs. The Technovation Centre partnered up with Eclat Digital, a specialist in realistic virtual prototyping, to put this together. Intense collaboration resulted in a virtual prototyping software, capable of creating and defining the new glazing based on the architect’s requirements. Today it can deliver a true representation of this newly defined coated glass on the building in its environment and under various climate conditions.
AGC then needed to be able to produce a prototype glass so the architect could validate the aesthetics - as well as in preparation for later large-scale production. This challenge was taken on by the AGC Interpane plant in Plattling. The plant was both able to apply the newly designed coating on glass and assemble this coated glass into an insulating glass unit in the same facility.
The result? A tailor-made service allowing architects to define the physical properties and the appearance of their project’s glazing, to view the aesthetics on screen under various weather conditions, to validate the colour on a sample and to leave with a sample of their unique creation. And all this happens in one day, during a Coating On Demand session in our Plattling site in Germany. And now also at our Lodelinsart plant in Belgium, where the coating can be produced in temperable version.
Innovation highlight
The realistic rendering software was the result of a long-term collaboration between the Technovation Centre and Eclat Digital. This lies at the heart of the Coating On Demand process, allowing architects to fully test out their glass configuration before prototype production. All possible combinations can be tested, viewed and fine-tuned in the software - light transmission, reflection, glass colour, energy performance... This results in a unique style & design for major building projects, and crucially also saves time - to complete this entire process in one day is unprecedented.
Service & Industrial highlight
AGC is unique in offering the flexibility and precision required for the tailor-made service of this kind. The Coating On Demand service allows AGC to produce fully customized glass at large scale without compromise on quality, durability and energy performance and with the same recycling and replacement possibilities as standard coated glass. AGC also offers this service for tempered and annealed products.
More on AGC's Coating on Demand service on agc-yourglass.com
St. Regis (Chicago, USA)
St. Regis Chicago is the first skyscraper building project with a façade featuring AGC’s Coating on Demand service in the USA. It features 6 shades of unique high-end coated glass especially developed for St. Regis to create a wave gradient across the height of the tower.
Building: St. Regis Chicago - https://srresidenceschicago.com/
Design: Jeanne Gang, Studio Gang Architects - http://studiogang.com/project/vista-tower
Facade: EFCO (Missouri)
Owner: JV Dalian Wanda & Megellan
Photos: Top photo by Angie McMonigal Photography. Trio of photos : Rendering pictures of St. Regis in its Chicago environment, as produced by the CoD visualisation software
