Special effects experts

For commercial businesses, like restaurants and bars, attractive glass features add ambience, while prestigious corporate firms look to add a touch of visual kudos with a unique feature on their premises.

Three companies offering the sorts of special effect glass that can fulfil this desire are 10 Green Bottles, The Green Bottle Unit and Float Glass Industries. These companies offer different products and use different approaches in their businesses but all achieve the same outcome, eye-catching designs.

10 Green Bottles

Independent glass company, 10 Green Bottles, produces contemporary glass for screen doors, side panels, wall cladding and shelving, as well as breakfast bars and walling.

The company, set up in 2005 by Managing Director Adam Vellins, offers seven types of glass: coloured glass; fusing glass, which is special sheet glass and other glass materials melted together in a kiln to form intricate designs; kilnformed glass, which is melted glass created by a carved high temperature resistant former

thick cast glass with layers of glass melted together; laminated glass; painted glass, which can be matched to most Pantone, Dulux or RAL colour references; and sandblasted glass.

Recent work has included two private projects in Cheshire and Blackburn, where one client requested a glass television wall with clear panels so that small fused elements could be glued on as well as two Optiwhite glass shelves. The whole panel was back-lit so light passes through the fused elements and Opti shelves.

Other work includes two full size glass doors with side panels, which were kilnformed and had a pattern sandblasted on one side, which was a copy of the client’s wallpaper.

Another set of kilnformed glass doors had 300 individually applied temp resistant fibre papers, which were overlapped and underlayed, glued on and then fused to create a squared design effect. Another door had kilnformed lines across it and a sandblasted Japanese flower motif.

The company has also done work for Moscow and Addis Ababa airports, BBC, Harrods, Marriott Hotel Group and Tarmac construction amongst others. Foster and partners architects, Norman Foster’s team, has recently asked Adam for samples of his glass to keep on file.

Adam’s career in glass started in the 1990s, when he worked for his family’s company, Pearsons Glass. A member of his family visited the US in the 1980s and noticed that coloured glass was becoming very popular there, so Pearsons started working with coloured glass.

Adam continued developing the use of hot glass kilns taking inspiration and knowledge from Europe and the US where techniques were more advanced, and taking particular design inspiration from the glass artist Dale Chihuly and the Bullseye Glass Company.

Currently, Adam is working with Halliday Meecham Architects and property agents Bruntwoods, to advise on recladding the building at 111 Piccadilly, Manchester.

Float Glass Industries

A new twin range of translucent recycled glasses, called Decoran and Structuran, were recently exhibited at 100% Design, in London by Float Glass Industries. The company started using this new product because a lot of its business involves partitions and screen sections, and this type of translucent glass is ideal for that.

As the glass is recycled and cast, instead of float line produced, it uses less energy. Decoran and Structuran are glasses in a ceramic form and come in many colours, textures and translucencies, through to opaque, which includes Anthracite, which has an appearance similar to black marble. Decoran is for internal use, such as bar surfaces, table-tops and for screens and partitions in retail, residential and office interiors, shower screens, while Structuran is for external use, for example building facades and cladding. Unlike stone, which is porous, Decoran has anti-stain, anti acid qualities and surface wear resistance.

I believe that Decoran and Structuran represent a milestone in glass development worldwide

The translucent products can be back-lit in interior spaces such as bars, restaurants, hotels and retail displays. High-grade inorganic colour pigments in the opaque products ensures they are colourfast.Both products were developed in Germany and imported by UK agents The Greenhouse Effect. They are formed from float glass waste that is sintered at a very high temperature in bio-gas fired ovens. As the products are 100% recycled float glass they do not contain resins. Such green credentials led to the nomination of the products for the 2006 Grand Designs Best Eco Product Awards.

An appearance at this year’s 100% Design exhibition has generated a lot of interest in the products. Based in Manchester, Float Glass Industries has evolved over the past century to become a competitive glass distribution, toughening and processing operator.

Roy Offland, Chairman of Float Glass Industries, said: ‘I believe that Decoran and Structuran represent a milestone in glass development worldwide.’

The Green Bottle Unit

The Green Bottle Unit was officially launched in April 2006 to make, market and sell its recycled glass product Eluna. Project work had been underway for six years prior to this launch under the Free Form Arts Trust led by Martin Goodrich, who is now Chief Executive Officer of the company.

Eluna glass can be used for wall and floor tiles, countertops and kitchen sink tops, bathroom surfaces, unit panels, as well as externally for paving, wall surfaces, cladding, copings, boarders, translucent walls and surfaces, signage, steps, under-lit paving and back-lit walls.

The different types of glass offered include: opaque, which is intended for paving, tiling and cladding in exterior applications and generally has a lighter tone; natural, which has a smooth, semi-gloss finish which retains the virtues of the glass qualities and is suitable for wall and interior tiling; semi-translucent, which gives a greater visual depth as well as a three dimensional effect with light transmission qualities that makes the glass glow, it is suitable for under-lighting in paving, flooring and tiling applications; anti-slip provides a micro-texture grip and has sand-like quality which also lightens the tone of the glass.

The glass is marketed as a sustainable alternative to products made from marble, granite, ceramics and synthetic materials. The company claims that the product ‘has all the advantages of these materials in addition to those of glass’.

Eluna is produced in five natural colours: blue, green, brown, white and light green; with four surface patterns. The patterns are determined by the particle size of the cullet used. The pattern and cullet size also affects the tone of the colour in four different grades from dark to light.

The recycled nature of the product means that great care has been taken to control the colour and tone, however, there are slight variations.

The glass is collected locally, in north-east London and processed locally at Rankins Glass. The glass tiles are then formed in kilns inhouse at the company’s head quarters at the Hot House, London. To increase productivity, the company has recently bought a new bespoke kiln from Castle Kilns.

Before the new kiln arrived the company was producing under a tonne of glass tiles a week and now the new kiln is up and running the company can produce two tonnes of glass tiles a week.

Martin Goodrich, CEO, says that the company’s future lies in replicating its process across the country, he said: ‘The company motto is, collect locally, produce locally, sell locally’.

Current projects include external paving for Hackney Council as well as tree planter work and providing decorative tiles for part repaving work. Members of the business have also been working with Thomas Heatherwick Studios on ideas for a glass roof for a shopping mall in China, which will be about 800m2.

The company has also worked with Oliver Heath from Changing Rooms ‘who is a bit of an eco warrior’ and has used its glass in furniture.