Nearly 25 years ago, Kiku Obata, founder of London- and St. Louis-based Kiku Obata & Company, first came across glass with a color interlayer.
“I walked into a room where there were hundreds of little 2-inch-square colored glass samples,” she recalls. “I stopped and said, ‘What is that?’ and was told, ‘Oh, it’s this glass we invented and we’re are trying to figure out what to do with it.’ And I thought, well, the building industry could use that.”
Interior division winner: Shanghai Museum of Glass, Shanghai, China
Time proved Obata correct as the product would eventually become the Vanceva®color interlayer system, offering architects and interior designers exciting new options in laminated glass. As one of the first to notice Vanceva’s potential, Obata now fittingly serves as a recurring judge for the Vanceva® World of Color Awards™, celebrating colorful, adventurous architecture and design around the globe.
The competition, now in its fourth year, has accepted submissions from diverse architects, designers, glass fabricators, engineers, and artists who found uses for Vanceva products in their creations. The Vanceva color system uses colored interlayers that are laminated between two pieces of glass to create custom colors.
Exterior division winner (also shown at top): Emporia Shopping, Malmö, Sweden
Winners and honorable mentions in exterior and interior categories were honored at the recent Glasstec trade show in Düsseldorf, Germany, where the projects were also showcased. Entries hailed from all over the world—from Shanghai to Latvia, Australia to Sweden—presenting Obata and her fellow esteemed judges an incredible range of new designs to consider.
Exterior division winner: Emporia Shopping, Malmö, Sweden
“Each year, we tend to see slightly more adventurous use of the material and projects that are on a larger scale,” says Andrew Moor, London-based architectural glass consultant and author of the book, Colours of Architecture, as well as an apt addition to the jury since the contest’s inception. Alongside Moor and Obata were Brunete Fraccaroli of Brunete Fraccaroli Arquitetura e Interiores in São Paulo; Martin Glass, director at Architects von Gerkan Marg and Partners in Berlin; and 2012 Exterior division winner, Abin Chaudhuri, who founded India’s Abin Design Studio.
Honorable Mention: An Urban Park as a UFO, Beasain, Spain
In the end, selecting from a long list of entries, the jury praised the dramatic exterior achievements of Gert Wingårdh of Wingårdh Arkitektkontor and glass laminator Cricursa for the Emporia shopping mall in Malmo, Sweden. Wingårdh created incredible visuals for one of the country’s newest and largest malls with sweeping, sculptural entryways made from Vanceva interlayers in gold and blue, representing the sun and the sea at each end of the building.
For Moor, the striking colors had double the impact as he found Wingårdh “used the exceptional transparency of the material to create an amazing effect from the exterior and something that still worked from inside.”
Honorable Mention: An Urban Park as a UFO, Beasain, Spain
For Obata, the design’s success was tied to the integration of glass within the architecture itself. “A lot of times, you will see things like just a glass panel in a hallway to add color; and it doesn’t feel integrated into the whole environment,” she says. “One thing about the winners this year is that Vanceva is really integrated into the architecture or the interior context of the building. It becomes part of the architecture.”
That theme can also be seen in the year’s interior winner, the Rainbow Chapel of the Shanghai Museum of Glass. A bright, white room encircled by 3,060 glass panels of varying opacity and 65 different colors, the wedding space is the perfect example of glass becoming an indispensable feature, transforming a space into something bold and adventurous.
Honorable Mention: An Urban Park as a UFO, Beasain, Spain
Obata finds herself gravitating toward entries that were more restrained and timeless when it came to the five other honorable mentions. “You want to do something that’s not going to get tired or look dated, she says. “And I think winners with less dramatic uses of color were examples of that. They will age well.” In particular, she cites the minimalist Corning Museum of Glass in New York, the fluid Amber concert hall of Liepaja, Latvia, and a Spanish park reenvisioned as a UFO. (Architects Lander Aranburu and Josean Alonso used Vanceva to create a flying saucer sun shelter that gave Beasain, Spain’s latest park a futuristic feel and interacted perfectly with the sunny climate by filtering light in a myriad of colors.)
Moor appreciates the mix of black with Vanceva at the Spectrum apartment complexes of Perth, Australia, citing it as an “obvious but much overlooked mixing of techniques with great potential.” He also appreciates entries from artists like Paul Housberg, who managed to find architectural solutions to budgetary constraints while still bringing a clear vision to life. “Transparent color is always difficult to achieve with enamels on glass and quite expensive. This is a cost-effective way to add transparent color to a façade. Adding color is one way to create memorable, iconic buildings that become landmarks.” This is a feature that Moor thinks sets Vanceva apart when architects and artists alike need creative solutions.
Honorable Mention: Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York
“You can get virtually any color and put graphics into it; you can control opacity all the way from translucent to opaque. There is so much you can do inside the glass,” adds Obata. With 16 colors and up to four layers, there are 17,000 variations available in the Vanceva color system. But Obata’s advice to those hoping to use that enormous potential for future combinations remains thinking about color in its context: “It’s important that color feels very woven in the environment in which it sits.”
Honorable Mention: Giant Amber Concert Hall, Liepaja, Latvia
About Vanceva
Producing a broad spectrum of colors and moods that are unachievable using stock selections of glass, Vanceva color by Eastman gives architects and designers more creative freedom with glass than ever before. Vanceva color interlayers can be combined to produce more than 17,000 transparent, translucent, or solid color options to help create the desired tone and intensity. When Vanceva color interlayers are combined with tinted or reflective glass, the design possibilities are nearly limitless. No other interlayer brand delivers the complete spectrum of colors for laminated glass like Vanceva colors. In addition, laminated glass offers other architectural benefits such as sound, safety, security and solar control.
Jury members (left to right) Kiku Obata, Martin Glass, Abin Chaudhuri
Jury members (left to right) Andrew Moor and Brunete Fraccaroli
About Eastman
Eastman is a global advanced materials and specialty additives company that produces a broad range of products found in items people use every day. With a portfolio of specialty businesses, Eastman works with customers to deliver innovative products and solutions while maintaining a commitment to safety and sustainability. Its market-driven approaches take advantage of world-class technology platforms and leading positions in attractive end-markets such as transportation, building and construction and consumables. Eastman focuses on creating consistent, superior value for all stakeholders. As a globally diverse company, Eastman serves customers in more than 100 countries and had 2016 revenues of approximately $9.0 billion. The company is headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee, USA and employs approximately 14,000 people around the world. For more information, visit eastman.com.