Editors' Letter: Looking at Glass

We often look through glass but seldom at it. The invisibility of glass is an essential aspect of our built environments. Glass brings daylight within, opens the interior to exterior views, and embodies the concept of transparency within architectural design — as Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky pointed out some years ago in their influential essay, “Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal.”

In this issue of CONTEXT, our fourth annual material exploration, we examine the nature of glass. It is a strange and alluring material indeed. Neither solid nor liquid, glass is something be-tween. Formed by heating a mixture of sand to molten temperatures and then quickly cooling it so the molecules become trapped in a state of disorder, this weird chemistry allows the passage of light through solid mass, a peculiar characteristic that our buildings and our lives depend on.  

The articles within this issue address current technological developments, artistic expression, and historic interpretations of glass. We invite a team of materials science researchers to explain the potential of their new compositional formula to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of architectural glass. We also learn of the possibility to blend characteristics of glass and concrete, creating seamless transitions between solid walls and transparent windows. Here in Philadel-phia, we look into the historic meaning of the wave patterns in the glass of Carpenters’ Hall. The Expressions section highlights the relationship between process and form in a renowned glass blowing and fabrication studio in Kensington. The Opinion piece considers the geographic sourc-es of glass materials, an opaque aspect of our transparent subject. Finally, the Design Profiles feature four architectural projects from Philadelphia AIA firms that incorporate glass in inventive ways.  

Architects routinely consider glass configurations — windows, storefront, curtain wall — and specify the performance of insulated glass assemblies, but we tend to overlook glass itself. CONTEXT invites you to reconsider glass and understand it more fully as a material that inspires creativity, opens avenues of exploration, and demands further innovation.  

TIMOTHY KERNER, AIA

Principal, Terra Studio  and CONTEXT Co-Chair

TODD WOODWARD, AIA

Principal, SMP Architects  and CONTEXT Co-chair