Translucent

TriBeCa’s Vestry Street has a vast variety of facade configurations and building heights. Over the years, the district has evolved from textile trade to artists’ warehouses, and now, residences. Archi-Tectonics’ V33, a high-end residential condominium, unifies the historically varying building-fronts via a pixelated facade. The design team generated numerous pixelation patterns by overlaying Vestry Street’s varying facade levels. The resulting pattern is comprised of translucent stone and glass, which creates variable facade conditions throughout the course of the day. The facade’s translucent stone glows to the inside during the day, and to the street at night. As one of Archi-Tectonics‘ many Smart Skins, the V33 building’s facad... More

Having grown tired of Chicago’s humid summers and cold winters limiting their use of an existing screened porch, the clients requested an enclosed sunroom, uplifting and full of light, to be enjoyed year round. The architect, Matt Flynn, wanted a fluid presence to soften the rectangular space. The result: a curvilinear, translucent, backlit, full-room suspended ceiling that bathes the sunroom in relaxing, diffuse light.DesignThe initial intention was to build the ceiling in flexible drywall. But when lighting for the room was discussed – with the typical solutions being recessed ceiling fixtures or cove lighting – the design concept took a sharp bend. By constructing the project in translucent acrylic and hiding the light fixtures above it,... More

WZMH Architects and HDR Architects collaborated with Spring Valley Corp. to fulfill the design requirements of this unique Government of Canada project. CSEC required a building that would support cutting-edge technology and human creativity, and promote a culture of teamwork and collaboration. To fulfil this objective, Spring Valley created a translucent panel called “iTrans”. Age- old logs were sourced from the depths of Georgian Bay and then sliced into 0.40mm thick veneer. They were laminated into panels which allow light to come through the wood, creating an amazingly warm glow. To create the structure, the curved frame was built with tubular structural steel that was shaped to extremely tight tolerances. The entire structur... More