In the case of the Kompassen shopping centre the architectural firm Ågren Arkitekter had so to speak been issued with a license to transcend boundaries by the investor Vasakronan. The facade in particular should become a hallmark that is visible from afar of the new mall. However, there was one condition attached to the carte blanche: only tried and tested and demonstrably durable materials may be used for the construction work as obviously when constructing a shopping centre the balancing act between aesthetics, functionality and economy is the thing that must be pulled off first and foremost. Architect Magnus Åhs knew what effect he wanted to achieve with his design, but his vision of sunlight reflected and refracted in the facade was only realised through a concerted approach of all the companies involved in this project.
Nominated for the Swedish Glass Prize “Glaspriset 2016”
The Swedish building envelope specialist, Skandinaviska Glassystem, consulted the glass artist Sofia Bergman and the idea of applying amber cast glass in an asymmetrical pyramid shape onto the facade was born. The cast glass parts were manufactured in the glassworks of Målerås Glasbruk that is situated in the middle of the famous “Kingdom of Crystal” in Småland. Each of the total of 5,700 glass pyramids has a base area of 20 by 20 centimetres and weighs more than three kilograms. In a similar way to a conventional insulating glass unit they are applied to the mirror glass that is secured invisibly from the outside to the sandwich facade. The unique glass architecture was nominated for the Swedish Glass Prize “Glaspriset 2016”.
Swedish glass tradition meets innovation
The perfect symbiosis between Swedish glass art and state-of-the-art flat glass technology can be seen in the finished facade. However the successful final results could certainly not have been anticipated at the start of the project and hence the responsible project manager at Skandinaviska Glassystem, Erik Stening, found appreciative works for the team: “Only the close cooperation of all the parties involved facilitated the perfect matching of each individual component to form a unique overall work of art which we can all rightly be proud of.” Hence Edgetech was, for instance, proposed as a partner by the sealing specialist Sika, due to the fact that Super Spacer® TriSealTM Premium Plus was ideally suited to the manufacture of the small mirror glass units, supplied by KS Glas.
