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Benefits of glass

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Design with glass

From anti-reflection to color tints, modern glass enhances design in many ways.

Build with glass

Whatever the construction challenge, we have the glass to help meet it.

Glass for your home

See how the correct choice of glass can help transform a home – and even our wellbeing.

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122 Leadenhall - 'The Cheesegrater'

The 75,000 square metres façade features a curtain wall that is double glazed to allow for a high solar protection on neutral-looking glass.

Fruit and Wool Exchange

The new-build façades are predominately brick-faced, with punched windows to reflect the surrounding context.

Caudwell International

Curved glass, punch windows and precast stone panels make up the envelope on a figure-of-eight footprint.

All our projects

From landmark construction projects to innovative residential builds, this is how our glass can make the difference.

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Our story

Just as we were in 1932, we're ready to meet the challenges of now and the future

Environmental Stewardship

Find out more about how glass can support sustainable design

Quality control

We strive for quality in everything we do

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Glass Analytics

Access our comprehensive suite of engineering and analytical tools

BIM objects

Download and use our standardized Guardian BIM content to create project specific BIM files

Seminars and online learning

For anyone who is interested in learning more about glass and its use

Benefits of glass

Most architectural glass today is produced using the float glass process. At Guardian Glass, we produce our float glass in various standard thicknesses and sizes, which can then be further processed. Float glass has specific properties in terms of color, transparency, emissivity, strength, pressure resistance, heat resistance, and chemical resistance. By laminating or coating the glass, we can add properties that allow the glass to perform and look its best for your project. 

Glass can improve our lives in so many ways – helping to insulate us from the cold, protecting us from the sun’s glare, reduce noise from outside and help keep us safe and secure. It can also contribute to increasingly important economic and sustainability goals.

 

Thermal insulation 

Glass can enhance building performance without sacrificing natural light. Changing temperatures during the day or between different seasons and across different climates, make it difficult to maintain a comfortable indoor environment. Thermal insulating glass allows natural light into a room, while helping to reduce the negative effects of cold outside temperatures by reflecting heat back into the room. 

Windows can be made more energy efficient by using double - or even triple-glazing. This means living or workspaces will be more comfortable year-round, and there may be fewer cold spots and drafts, perhaps less condensation too. We can make the glass beautifully transparent, while giving you the freedom to use larger windows that will flood home and office interiors with natural daylight. All helping people feel better and be more productive in their work. 

Sustainability

Consumer and industry awareness of sustainability is growing within the building industry. Due to its energy-balancing properties, glass is key to helping reduce both heating and cooling costs, as well as contributing towards achieving globally recognized green building program certifications.

Sustainability

Solar protection 

When you need plenty of natural daylight but want to reflect a high proportion of the sun’s heat – the answer is solar control glass. It can reduce the ‘greenhouse effect’ that can occur in summer when rooms overheat and become unpleasant. Solar control glass helps limit this, while letting natural daylight in and reducing uncomfortable glare from the sun. 

Solar control glass enables you to build with light in a variety of colors and can even be combined with laminated glass to provide increased safety and security. 

Financial and sustainable benefits

Solar control glass minimizes the amount of heat energy transmitted through the glass, helping to limit the high costs of air conditioning. Large window and facade surfaces also allow plenty of light to reach deep into the building’s interior, therefore avoiding excessive use of artificial lighting.

Financial and sustainable benefits

Noise control 

As urban areas are developed and expand, noise pollution can become a real problem in buildings. Too much noise can damage health and wellbeing: sleep can be disrupted, stress levels may increase, and some people could suffer from a lack of concentration at work. Noise can be reduced so that people can be more comfortable in their living and workspaces.

Acoustic insulating glass

Acoustic insulating glass combines noise reduction with all the benefits of laminated safety glass, namely increased security, safety and UV protection. Other features such as solar control, thermal insulation or decorative effects can be added also. To reduce noise between rooms inside a building, acoustic insulating glass is also often used in partitions, doors and windows.

Acoustic insulating glass

Safety

We all want reliable products that are safe to use. Glass is often also laminated to protect people from glass breakage. This laminated safety glass can be used in many different ways to provide increased impact resistance, enhance safety and security, and even offer UV protection. 

Heat treated glass

Glass can also be heat treated to give it increased safety features. Tempered (toughened and heat treated) glass is used when high strength, thermal resistance and safety are crucial. Tempered glass provides an additional safety characteristic, as it tends to break into small, circular pieces rather than large, jagged shards.

Heat treated glass

Aesthetics 

Every glass project is unique, and the level of reflection, light transmission or privacy varies. Whatever you need, glass can help you make it possible – from almost invisible transparent glass for stunning clarity and outstanding views, or translucent glass to create the perfect blend of privacy and light transmission. 

Transparency

If it’s transparent glass you need, Guardian Glass can help. Many interior and exterior projects need crystal-clear transparent glass with reduced reflection. Our anti-reflective glass can be almost invisible, combining function and beauty to maximize visibility and minimize light reflection, for a virtually perfect and distortion-free viewing experience.

Transparency

Color and reflection

Glass can bring color and reflection to any environment. Creating decorative effects that add a new dimension to interior design or building facades. If you need a glass facade to have a distinctive appearance, then internal and external reflection, the use of color, and changes in these properties in different light conditions can make the overall aesthetic beautifully complex.

Color and reflection

Different shapes and sizes

At Guardian, we are constantly developing products that satisfy and even exceed the demands of modern architecture, all to help push the boundaries of what’s possible. We can provide almost invisible glass for curved building envelopes with coatings that remain stable and secure. Glass can also be created in large panel sizes today, offering even more freedom to innovate and design something unique and striking.

Different shapes and sizes