Head of the Glass: 7 Glass Products for Privacy or Panache

These recent architectural glass products are drawing on pattern, texture, or technique to meet your project needs, whether you’re looking to create privacy without sacrificing natural light penetration or simply to jazz up a space.

Sheila Kim Sheila Kim

CARVART: C1
Offering fresh motifs for architectural glass, CARVART®’s C1 (also shown at top) is a collection by award-winning Ferreira Design Company consisting of 12 etched designs which range from herringbone and seemingly hand-drawn line patterns to irregular varied-sized dots and prism facets. Pattern scale, glass color, transparency, and reflection can all be customized. Each design is named for Brooklyn neighborhoods, paying homage to CARVART’s beginnings in the New York City borough.


CARVART’s (left, from top) Bedford, Bushwick, Kensington, and Seagate patterns. A mockup of Seagate (right) is shown on colored transparent glass.

Nathan Allan Glass Studios, Inc.: Crackle Glass
Uniquely resembling cracked, partially melted ice, Crackle Glass is created using a special fusing and laminating process with three layers of various glass types laminated to mirror. As light enters the multilayered glass front and reflects back out, the surface sparkles much like brilliant diamonds, making it an ideal cladding finish. Available in a maximum panel size of 18 square feet, the ¾-inch-thick product can be specified with clear, low-iron, aqua blue, blue, blue and aqua blue combination, black, or bronze glass to achieve different effects.


Nathan Allan’s Crackle Glass in black (left) and blue/aqua blue (right).

Skyline Design: Patricia Urquiola Collection
Milan-based Spanish designer and architect Patricia Urquiola devised three abstract patterns which can be etched on one or both sides of the glass to meet different aesthetic and obscuring needs. Cipher, available in four palettes, uses a series of symbols resembling typography dingbats to form randomized pixelated patterns. Check, a dashed-grid interrupted by diagonal lines, comes in eight color combinations with or without a gradient effect. And Overlay sports overlapping diagonal, horizontal, and vertical stripes, as well as parallelograms, to create an optical, dimensional appearance; it’s offered in five palettes. All three can be etched on low-iron tempered safety glass; additionally, Cipher and Check can be specified with clear, tempered safety glass.


Patricia Urquiola designed (from left) Overlay, Check, and Cipher for Skyline Design.

Pulp Studio: Metal Network
The laminated low-iron glass of this collection incorporates metallic-printed interlayer patterns which range from plaids to gradient dots and scattered specks. Also available with mirror glass, the panels measure up to 60 inches wide by 126 inches high and come in five thicknesses.


Examples of gradient effects from Pulp Studio’s Metal Network.

Livinglass: Fresh
This value line offers a non-laminated, single sheet of clear or white-finish glass (100-percent recycled also available) etched with any of 16 patterns, ranging from a graphic representation of topography lines to organic silhouettes. Same or different patterns can be etched on the reverse side, and in different scales, to create unique compositions. The etching is completed in a choice of White, Mirror/Coppergold, Platinum/Coppergold, or Yellowgold/Coppergold tones. The product is Class A fire rated and UV, water, and chemical resistant.


Meadowleaf is part of the Fresh line from Livinglass.

Bendheim: VintageWire
For some of us, this retro glass style is nostalgic, evoking the wire-glass windows of the doors in grade-school corridors. Originally developed in the late 1800s as a safety glass, the industrial style is today frequently used as a decorative element for walls, doors, windows, and even case goods. Bendheim embeds traditional, real chicken wire within ½-inch-thick laminated glass. Textured and mirrored glass options are also available.


Bendheim’s VintageWire glass.

Walker Glass: Walker Textures Transition
Walker now offers architectural glass that’s etched to admit ample natural light while providing privacy. Two styles are available: just as it sounds, True Fade transitions subtly from a translucent to fully transparent surface, the “fade” area specifiable between four and 15 inches; and Gradient, meanwhile, presents the same effect, but with visible increasing- and decreasing-diameter dots for a more graphic appearance. Both of these can be applied horizontally or vertically. The maximum sheet length is 142 inches for True Fade and 128 inches for Gradient; both are suitable for exterior or interior walls.


True Fade by Walker Glass.

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© Roland Baldi Architects

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