Printed glass is a technique that offers multiple opportunities suitable for interior design, architecture and industrial applications. The resistance of this material makes it perfect for both indoor and outdoor use and can be applied to countless surfaces such as doors and windows, skylights, sunscreens, partitions and balusters, furniture and decorative
interior glass.
In English, printed glass is known by an expression that literally translated would sound almost bizarre: Fritted Glass. But in reality it is the English name that derives from an almost literal translation of the compound that is at the base of printed glass, “the
fried one”.
Fritta is the basic material of all ceramic glazes, intended for finishing single-fired, double-fired or stoneware tiles. It is a glassy matrix mixture, which is prepared by melting the components, which, once cooled rapidly, are crushed into small grains
.
In the production of printed glass, a particular ceramic ink based on fried glass is used. To do this, there are essentially two printing methods: screen printing and digital printing
.
Screen printing is a very ancient technique and takes place starting from the photographic reproduction of the motif you want to obtain. A frame, called serigraphic, is created on it, which traces the design to be carried on the glass plate. Oven cooking, generally associated with tempering (which is the process that gives glass extraordinary mechanical strength, exceptional flexibility and safety features that guarantee, in the event of breakage, fragmentation into very small pieces so as not to hurt people or damage things) completes the
operation, making the enamel vitrify.
Digital printing is an innovation in screen printing. It allows you to print on glass plates, images, photos, drawings and writings received through a digital medium. All this, without the use of the usual reproduction and decoration tools such as screen printing frames or printing rollers
.
The peculiarity of digital printing consists in the use of special ceramic paints that vitrify at 700°C (during the tempering process) and which for this reason are unalterable over time. Thanks to this process, the image remains unchanged over time, even if exposed to direct UV radiation and weather agents and to the wear and tear of
time.
Digital printing on glass does not alter the typical characteristics of tempering, as the special ceramic paint, used in the process, vitrifies and behaves as if it were glass. Ink and glass become one
.
This feature has made the digitally printed Fritted Glass solution a choice used by many architects for the facades of their projects, both to create construction details such as a parapet or a window,
and to cover the entire surface.
Combining functionality and aesthetics, digitally printed glass allows you to create suggestive graphics, enriched with gradient effects from transparent to full color, which give a strong expressive character to architecture. As was the case with the following case studies:
Ryerson Toronto student center designed by the Zeidler and Snøhetta team of architects, a complex of eight floors, each with a different characteristic, that facilitate learning without sacrificing sustainability. In fact, thanks to its energy performance, the building can claim the LEED Silver certification
.
The jewel in the crown of the new student center is its suspended external façade, characterized by 3,000 insulating glass elements that cover an area of 5,100 square meters. It is a digitally printed glass with the use of ceramic agglomerates. The final result is of great impact, on the one hand, the glass, with its lightness, evokes a sense of contrast to the “mass” of the work, on the other hand, thanks to digital printing, it acquires thermal insulation and protection against glare. Working like a cloud cover, Fritted Glass modulates the quality of light to vary from 'cloudy' to 'partly cloudy' to 'sunny', so indoor conditions are always diverse and this allows students to have a different experience every time they visit
the building.
In the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art project designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, digitally printed glass was instead used for the roof. The structure appears solid and light at the same time. The roof filters the light to give the spaces below, the museum lobby, the office lobby and some exhibition spaces, the
right amount of daylight.
Another example of a project that sees the technology used for the roof is the Jewel Changi Airport designed by Safdie Architects. In this case, the roof was developed with the idea of maximizing light and transparency, while minimizing energy consumption
.
The list of projects certainly does not end here, but those seen so far make us well understand the potential of this technology, maximum flexibility and customization for any type of design from the simplest to the most elaborate.
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