At Edge House, IQ Glass designed and built a frameless glass link between the main house and entertainment block to create a walkway that protected the occupants from the elements when traveling between these separate buildings. The developer wanted to make the glass link as transparent as possible to achieve an almost invisible structure that didn’t obstruct the view of the original buildings’ facades.
Low Iron glass was used for this frameless glass link to create an exceptionally clear finish to the glass. Glass traditionally has a green tint because it contains iron oxide as an impurity which creates the green colouration. Usually you cannot see the green when looking through a pane of glass but it can be seen down the sides, therefore when designing a frameless glass installation low iron glass is specified as the side of the glass panes are not covered by a frame. Low iron glass also makes the surface of the glass clearer which is desired for listed or heritage buildings to further minimise the interruption to the original architecture.
The glass void between the two buildings is constructed from frameless glass walls, a structural glass roof and integrated frameless glass doors. Maintaining the frameless design through each element of the external walkway allows the structure to disappear into the existing architecture. The exterior frameless glass wall system was designed to be supported below the floor finishes, so the stone flooring abuts the minimal bottom channel and the glass appears to be unsupported. This sophisticated detailing gives the glass link the illusion that it has simply floated down into place without interrupting the skin of Edge House or the separate entertainment building.