Elbphilharmonie Hamburg Archives

ELBPHILHARMONIE HAMBURG: FAÇADE DETAILS | GUARDIAN GLASS

AFTER WALKING THROUGH THE DESIGN CONCEPT OF ELBPHILHARMONIE HAMBURG IN A PREVIOUS ARTICLE, THIS TIME WE DELVE INTO THE DETAILS OF THE BUILDING’S GLASS FAÇADE FROM GUARDIAN EXTRACLEAR®, GUARDIAN CLIMAGUARD®, AND GUARDIAN SUNGUARD® WHICH CREATES A DYNAMIC SHAPE SIMILAR TO NATURAL WAVES AND NEARBY HARBOR

TEXT: WARUT DUANGKAEWKART
PHOTO: CORDELIA EWERTH

(For Thai, press here)

The unusual-looking curved glass facade seems to be what people remember the most about Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the project where Herzog & de Meuron transforms an old warehouse into a new landmark of the city of Hamburg. The place houses a variety of activities and establishments, from music hall, restaurants, bars, to an apartment and a hotel.

The natural attributes of rippled waves inspire the glass facade with three-dimensional form and details. With a surface area of over 21,800 square meters, the undulating surface occupies more than 5,000 square meters. The finished work is the result of the collaborative effort between the design team and Guardian Glass. The significance of the facade’s unprecedented design at the time is more than just the striking physical appearance but its ability to maintain the highest level of efficiency and quality, from strength, safety and the reduction of interior temperature.

The three-layer safety glass are bent and assembled into the designed form, delivering both aesthetically appealing appearance and functional efficiency. Despite being bent into curved form, the glass from high quality manufacturing process still keeps the functional qualities of Low-E surface coating, which enhances heat control.

The glass used with the architecture of Elbphilharmonie Hamburg ranges from Guardian ExtraClear®, a transparent flat glass, which is used as the principal material for its transparency. Guardian ClimaGuard® DT, the heat insulation glass, offers high durability with efficient control of interior temperature. Guardian SunGuard® Solar Light Blue 52 is used for it is able to control the amount of sunlight from coming into the building while still maintaining a nice presence of natural light with 47% Visible Light Transmission (VLT) that filter heat transmission down to only 36%, enabling efficient temperature control and less indoor air conditioning usage.

The technologies developed and incorporated for the construction of Elbphilharmonie Hamburg building allow us to see new possibilities of how glass can be used in architectural design. With the right integration of design, and bodies of knowledge surrounding materials and manufacturing processes, one can see how the potential and landscape of architectural design and construction have been and will be broadened.

Revisited a Elbphilharmonie Hamburg previous article at

ELBPHILHARMONIE HAMBURG | GUARDIAN GLASS

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ELBPHILHARMONIE HAMBURG | GUARDIAN GLASS

HERZOG & DE MEURON TRANSFORMED THE OLD WAREHOUSE INTO ‘ELBPHILHARMONIE HAMBURG’ THE NEW LANDMARK OF HAMBURG, GERMANY THROUGH THE IMPLEMENTATION OF 3D CURVED GLASS FAÇADE FIRST DEVELOPED BY GUARDIAN GLASS AND THE ARCHITECT

TEXT: WARUT DUANGKAEWKART
PHOTO: CORDELIA EWERTH

(For Thai, press here)

The Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, is one of the buildings known for its architectural splendour and its use of some of the world’s best acoustic systems. The project has the eminent and 2001’s Pritzker Prize laureates, Herzog & de Meuron, known for their masterful adaptation and reappropriation of the old and the new for their architectural creations.

What’s particularly interesting about the project isn’t just its captivating appearance and advanced technologies that are employed but also the historical narrative and context of the location, especially the old building in which the program is sited. Originally, the space was home to a government-owned warehouse (Kaispeicher). The government later initiated an idea to develop the building and the area into a new city center, housing a program of diverse public spaces, urban and cultural activities. The design takes a conservation approach by keeping the old warehouse building as the base of the newly constructed addition, and creates an intriguing fusion that merges the old brick structure to the new architecture where glass is used as a principal material. At the lower portion of the structure, function spaces are connected, embraced and run through the old warehouse’s space before the program leads up to the diverse functional areas on the upper floors, such as a concert hall, restaurants, bars, an apartment complex, a hotel including the rooftop overlooking the spectacular view of the city and its harbour.

The essence of the project is, however, the glass addition sitting on the top of the brick warehouse. Designed with the aesthetic merits that coincide with the functional program of the concert hall, the building’s dynamic materiality and surfaces render emotional responses with users. The spirit of Hamburg as a harbour city is expressed through the facade’s form and details that take inspiration from the sails of a ship and natural attributes of waves. It is far from common to see glass being used in its varying bent and curved forms to create a three-dimensional curved facade with the expansive 5,000 square meter surface. The collaborative process between the design team and Guardian Glass granted the architects incredible creative freedom, successfully materialising possibilities and imagination into reality.

The complex three dimensional curved glass façade is interesting for it is the novel invention specifically developed for the project, through an extensive and detailed research that seeks for a way to preserve the aesthetic and functional qualities of each type of glass, from indoor temperature control, exterior heat prevention, etc. with models such as Extra Clear, ClimaGuard®, SunGuard® are used to keep the design the closest to perfection. Architecturally speaking, the development of material achieved in this project has enabled many promising possibilities for the future works of architectural design.