Vision Glazing
Vision Glazing
Enjoy views through your glass in comfort
What is vision glass?
Vision glass is any type of glass that you can see through. It is the opposite of spandrel glass. Spandrels are opaque glass panels located between areas of vision glass, which are often used to conceal structural building components such as columns, floor slabs, HVAC systems, vents, wiring and plumbing. Designs that call for large areas of glass such as curtain walls or structural glazed facades often include spandrels. Careful selection of the glass for vision areas is necessary to create a comfortable indoor environment for the building occupants.
Where and why do we use vision glass?
Vision glass is used in many different areas of buildings such as glazed facades, curtain walls, roofs and skylights. Vision glass can also be curved or oversized (up to 6 m panel lengths).
Vision glass provides views of the outside, while allowing more natural daylight into inside spaces to help improve the wellbeing of building occupants. When used in curved glazing or in larger sizes, vision glass can improve sight lines and reduce visual impediments, while helping to dissolve the boundaries of a building to bring occupants up close with the outdoors.
Which type of glass is used for vision glass?
While vision glass helps connect you with the outside and provides more natural daylight, if the glass is not carefully selected to suit the building’s orientation, use and surroundings, interior spaces can quickly become uncomfortable and more energy may be consumed in cooling these spaces and keeping them comfortable.
Our Guardian SunGuard® glass products offer diffenrent levels of solar control and light transmission, and various aesthetic options to suit many applications, including roof and skylights.
When selecting vision glass, it is important to consider the following factors in order to create a comfortable inside environment, while benefitting from natural daylight and views of the outside:
Light transmission
When it comes to daylighting, Guardian Glass recommends a glass with a maximum light transmission of 50% in regions with a strong sunlight. This not only helps the visual comfort of occupants in terms of reduced glare, but also it can also help increase the ratio of vision glass areas in the façade to provide views of the outside.
Guardian Glass for BIM (Building Information Modelling) is an online tool that provides a daylight factor recommendation (light transmission and glass-to-wall ratio) based on the building’s location and conditions (i.e. orientation, use, etc.).
Solar control
High performance coated glass helps minimize the amount of heat energy that penetrates a building by blocking a significant amount of this energy, thus helping to prevent interiors from overheating and to limit the use of air conditioning. The solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) is used to measure the solar energy that transfers indoors through the glass. For architectural projects located in warm climates, a low SHGC is preferred. In an insulating glass unit (IGU), the number #2 surface placement of a solar control coating often facilitates the best performance because it partially reflects away incoming solar energy before it can enter the glazing.
Spectral selectivity
Selectivity refers to the ratio between light transmission and solar control. Light coming inside the building, as well as solar control coatings and their placement in the glazing, are essential in supporting occupant comfort. The term “spectral selectivity” is used to address the amount of daylight transmission relative to solar energy blockage. Greater spectral selectivity is achieved when more visible light, and less overall solar energy, is transmitted.
Thermal insulation
High performance coated glass can also help reduce the heat transfer associated with interior-versus-exterior air temperature differences, thus lowering the demand on HVAC systems. For example, high performance coated glass with a light transmission of 50% can offer a U-value of 1.3 W/m2K in a double insulating glass unit.
Learn more about how glass can help improve the energy performance of a building.
Want to know more about glass?
Guardian Glass supports you on your journey to become a glass expert. Create an account on our Training Center.
Aesthetics
High performance coated glass can provide a wide range of aesthetic options that can meet current trends for both neutral and grey-looking glass. Guardian SunGuard® high performance coatings are applied on clear float glass, which provides a more consistent color across different thicknesses of a product – compared to body tinted glass which becomes significantly darker as its thickness increases.
Some of our eye-catching vizion glazing projects:
Vidalta Torre Lux
Mexico
Distrito La Perla
Mexico
Want to see more architectural roof glazing projects? Visit our project section
Our vision glass products
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SunGuard® eXtraSelective
SunGuard® eXtraSelective is our latest commercial range of triple silver solar control glass with world-class selectivity, which means it delivers an optimum ratio of natural light transmission to solar energy control.
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SunGuard® SuperNeutral
SunGuard® SuperNeutral™ is our commercial range of double silver coated glass, ideal for those seeking high-performance with a highly neutral aesthetic. Its superb natural light transmission, solar protection and thermal insulation make it ideal for a wide range of applications.
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SunGuard® Solar
SunGuard® Solar is a commercial solar control glass that helps to reflect the sun’s energy. Making it ideal for applications when excessive solar heat gain could result in uncomfortable living environments. Its reflective qualities can also enhance the aesthetic appeal.
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