Green Products: Trends & Innovations
Daylighting the Key to N.Y. Times' Rating Run
The Renzo Piano-designed New York Times Company world headquarters building, under construction in midtown Manhattan, has been termed "the most ambitious lighting experiment in American commercial real estate."
It also expresses another emerging trend in U.S. architecture, the widespread use clearer, high-transmittance glass. The New York Times building will utilize an increasingly popular, low-iron, ultra-clear glass.
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Mark Fanelli, director of new products for PPG's Flat Glass business unit says the introduction of new low-E coatings in combination with ultra-clear glass represents "a significant breakthrough" because it allows architects to specify ultra-clear glass for vision glass, skylights, entries and spandrels without sacrificing energy performance.
"One of the prevailing trends in architecture today," Fanell says, "is a call for vision glass that exhibits the highest possible level of transparency and visual clarity. Unfortunately, the desire for that aesthetic is usually at odds with the architect's equally profound desire to design and construct buildings that are energy efficient and environmentally responsible. New products are engineered to give them the best of both worlds."