Continental Europe - EN

Glossary

logo check
What's your challenge?
Design with glass

From anti-reflection to color tints, modern glass enhances design in many ways.

Build with glass

Whatever the construction challenge, we have the glass to help meet it.

Glass for your home

See how the correct choice of glass can help transform a home – and even our wellbeing.

Highlights
BNL-BNP Paribas

Due to the clever structural glazing, the aesthetics are visually appealing, reflecting the building’s surroundings on all sides.

cube berlin

Architects 3XN have created deliberate geometric transformations that create a prismatic pattern of triangular surface reliefs.

NOBU HOTEL

Nobu Hotel Warsaw embraces the city’s charisma to create a genuinely unique, stunning structure in this cultural hub.

Explore Guardian Glass projects in your area and beyond with Google Street View and be inspired by the possibilities.

Discover our showcase projects, captured through the lens of professional photography.

Highlights
Our story

Just as we were in 1932, we're ready to meet the challenges of now and the future

Environmental priorities

Find out more about how glass can support sustainable design

Quality control

We strive for quality in everything we do

Glossary

From Acid Etching to Zebra board

Illustrations for Catalogues
133 definitions

Acid Etching

A process for achieving an obscure frosted appearance, where the surface of flat or bent glass is obscured by treatment with hydrofluoric acid or its compounds. The glass surface is covered with an unreactive barrier medium such as wax, the desired design is inscribed in the barrier, and then hydrofluoric acid is applied. The acid will only corrode the areas that are not covered by barrier.

Acoustic laminate

A laminated glass with special interlayers with better "acoustic performance" than ordinary laminated glass.

Airspace

The cavity formed by the spacer bar between the two "panes" of glass in an "insulating glass unit". It is generally filled with air, hence may be also referred to as the "airspace". The air can be replaced with argon for example, or other inert gas, for enhanced thermal insulation.

Annealed glass

Annealed glass is ordinary float glass, that has not been heat-strengthened or tempered.

See more

Annealing lehr

The section of a glass manufacturing line immediately after the glass formation, where the glass is carefully cooled to prevent any undesirable residual stress in the glass.

Anti-reflective glass

Surface-coated glass, which minimises light reflectance and appears therefore to show virtually no visual reflection.

Arrisseding

A basic form of edge working involving the removal of sharp edges of cut panes of glass by means of abrasive belts, resulting in a coarse ground finish. A standard arriss is often applied to annealed glass prior to being heat treated.

Asymmetrical glazing unit

A sealed unit that consists of panes of glass of dissimilar thickness.

Autoclave

A large pressure vessel that Polyvinylbutyral "PVB" laminated glass is heated in and subjected to high pressure, to bond the layers of glass and PVB together.

Balustrade

A term commonly used for a "barrier" or form of "guarding", generally waist-height, which protects people from falling where there is a change in floor level, for example stairs and balconies.

See more