Products
Flat Glass in Everyday Use
From buildings and transport to solar energy and smart devices, discover where flat glass enhances daily life.
Discover Flat Glass
Flat glass is the basic material that goes into end products that we see (and see through) every day.
It is used to make windows and facades for houses and buildings, windscreens and windows for automobiles and transport, and solar energy equipment such as thermal panels and photovoltaic modules.
It is also used, in much smaller quantities, for many other applications including interior fittings and decoration, furniture, “street furniture” (e.g. bus stops), appliances and electronics.
Glass in Buildings
Delivering so much more than you think or even expect
Glass benefits you in many more ways than one may think of at first sight. Facades and windows are the most obvious and visible way of applying glass in buildings and houses. Today’s glass products for commercial and residential buildings make use of highly developed technologies to offer you more than the simple window panes of the past. Not evident to you? Normal, all these technologies are invisible to the eye because we want you to continue enjoying an unaltered view when you see through our glass.
Light, comfort, well-being, style, safety and security, energy-efficiency and the respect for the environment thanks to a sustainable material are among the benefits of today’s high-performing windows and glass building facades. The ability to control heat, light, and sound transmission to a high degree enables architects to design buildings that have a greatly reduced impact on the environment and dwellings that are quiet, comfortable and safe.
Windows
Windows Natural daylight, comfort, well-being, style, safety are just a few of the benefits that today's high-performing windows can deliver. The ability to control heat, light, and sound transmission to a high degree enables to design buildings that have a greatly reduced energy consumption but that are as well comfortable and safe for building occupants.
Skylights
Skylights improve access to natural light and ventilation. They include products such as roof windows, unit skylights, tubular daylighting devices (TDDs), sloped glazing, and custom skylights. For all these applications, special glass treatments exist to reduce glare and overheating while ensuring sufficient strength.
Greenhouses
In agricultural greenhouses, glass is mainly used for both the roof and the walls. High transparency and conductivity of heat and light are the most important characteristics of this type of glass. For centuries, including in the most hostile climates for vegetation, glass has helped feed the planet.
Facades
Glass facades are mainly used for tertiary buildings (offices, shops, hospitals,…). They allow natural light into the building and connect occupants with the external world, while providing a light and aerial appearance to buildings. The exposure to daylight and views to the surroundings contribute to productivity, better focus, upward sales and even faster patient recovery in hospitals.
Glass in interior design : maximising light
Glass offers dynamic interior design solutions to maximise light and to enhance the impression of space. It adds colour and movement to a room thanks to wide range of textures and patterns. It also ensures safety and can serve to protect your privacy. High glass strength, made possible by modern glass technology, extends the range of applications of this attractive material beyond the merely decorative, to functional and even digital roles.
Furniture
Almost every piece of furniture in a house can be made from or incorporate glass to communicate gentleness and sophistication without renouncing to durability and strength. Special treatments to resist shock, abrasion and heat, allow its use in kitchen tops and backsplash. From tables to storage units and cabinets, glass offers unique aesthetic possibilities to furniture designers maximising light and adding a bright, vibrant effect which enhances the sensation of space.
Mirrors
Mirrors are the typical everyday products we all use and never pay attention to anymore. Yet, mirrors are as well essential components of complex applications like telescopes, solar mirrors, cameras and digital devices. Interactive mirrors can display text and graphics and combine touchscreen technologies with the usual reflective characteristics to offer a unique digital experience.
Floors and stairs
Glass can be used as a flooring material both in residential and commercial buildings. Glass floors but also staircases allow more light to flow inside buildings with unique indoor design effects. It is more and more used in tourist attractions to display archaeological sites or to enjoy vertiginous down views.
Partitions
Glass partitions allow light to penetrate further into a building and enhance the sensation of space, transparency and modernity. Electrochromic or switchable glass solutions can also be used in internal partitions to provide either full transparency or an opaque look when privacy is required. Safety and security are often key features of internal glass partitions. Glass helps reducing noise but can also be treated to slow down the spread of fire or resist to firearm projectile impacts.
Display cases
Glass applications are endless. For example, in museums glass protects exhibits without compromising the visual experience of the visitors. To avoid unwanted glare and reflections, and limit distractions from a clear view of the object or environment behind the glass, special coatings have been developed to impressively enhance the clarity of these glazed products. It is also used in stadiums and arenas to create invisible and safe barriers.
Glass in Transport
An enabling technology
Flat glass is an integral part of most automotive vehicles and is essential to Europe’s transport industry. Windscreens, backlights and windows for cars and all types of vehicles provide safety, security, durability, excellent visibility and allow modern design and greater comfort for passengers. As the future of transport requires advanced interconnected technologies, glass already allows the integration of sensors, cameras, antennas, GPS and several other functionalities in an invisible way. Glass delivers advanced solutions for automated-driving and improved experience with augmented reality features on windshields.
Glass in automotive
Glazing solutions for the automotive industry need to offer the highest possible performance in terms of safety, security and durability, as well as style and comfort for vehicle manufacturers and for their passengers. It is perhaps not generally known that innovative products make a significant contribution to reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions thanks to lighter but stronger glass pieces, heat-reflective glass limiting the use of fuel-thirsty air-conditioning, solar PV panoramic glass roofs, etc.
Sun roof
Having a sun roof is today an option that provides exclusivity and a personal style to the car. It gives a feeling of freedom and evasion simply by providing natural ventilation to the car with reduced noise levels compared to opened side-windows. In electric or hybrid cars, sunroofs can now also integrate solar PV modules to help recharge batteries and thus help extend the vehicle’s range.
Side screen
Good visibility conditions are key to driving safety, and visual comfort is part of visibility. Side screens bring sunlight into the vehicles and improve the driver’s vision. Light and aerodynamic design requires glazed surfaces of increasingly complex geometries, which can be a real manufacturing challenge to ensure durability and perfect vision.
Mirrors
Mirrors Mirrors in cars play an important role in ensuring visibility and safety. Rear-view mirrors are made of two laminated mirrors so that they do not dazzle even when strong light hits them from behind. Side mirrors allow to inspect the right and left sides of the car while driving, parking, or before starting. It can integrate light to alert if the angle is out of focus (blind spots).
Interior display
Interior displays are changing the interior design of cars and enhancing the interaction between the driver and the vehicles. Glass allows to design futuristic interior cockpit with can integrate digital functionalities that enhance driving experience.
Windshield
Modern windshields ensure the safety of our road trip. They are usually made of laminated safety glass which consists of 2 or more curved sheets of glass with a plastic interlayer laminated between them. They deliver high visibility but can also act interactively. They can be connected to a camera to allow the driver to access to different views around the vehicle or integrate sensors for data communication and mobile information. Integrated sensors can as well scan the road for added assistance.
Public transport
In public transport, glass is not only for the driver‘s comfort, visibility and safety. These same properties also apply to side windows, which are typically of a large size to enhance the passengers’ experience. Comfort is linked to high visibility and temperature control as well as to reduced noise. Acoustic glass helps limiting the driver's tiredness and provides better travelling conditions for passengers.
Truck
Trucks are characterised by very large windshields. Glass moderates the solar radiation that heats up the inside of the cabin by absorbing sun rays and reducing UV transmission, but can as well keep the cold out thanks to insulating glazing solutions.
Partitions
Glass partitions allow light to penetrate further into a building and enhance the sensation of space, transparency and modernity. Electrochromic or switchable glass solutions can also be used in internal partitions to provide either full transparency or an opaque look when privacy is required. Safety and security are often key features of internal glass partitions. Glass helps reducing noise but can also be treated to slow down the spread of fire or resist to firearm projectile impacts.
Ships and boats
Glass on boats has different applications depending on the type of boats. The armoured windows used on navy vessels are similar to the windows on military vehicles, while the glass on commercial and cruise ships is not very different from the glass used on cars. Glass on boats therefore needs to satisfy a wide range of performance criteria, especially as international standards governing marine safety become increasingly demanding.
Aircraft
Especially for cockpit windows, but also for cabin windows, glass is reinforced to a very high strength by making its surfaces permanently compressed. Windshields on planes are also equipped with heating systems engineered to protect against the static electric charging that can occur during flights. Glass technology applied to aircraft includes protection from solar radiation, frost, electro-magnetic radar beams, and the risk of bird strikes.
Glass in Solar Energy
Glass is an essential element of solar units converting solar energy into electricity. The glass protects the cells from the external elements and, depending on the type of glass, increases its energy generation capacity. For instance, extra-clear glass is used to maximize the transmission of sunlight to the photovoltaic cells.
Solar collectors
Solar thermal collectors collect heat as opposed to photovoltaic panels which convert sunlight into electricity. They are usually applied to supply hot water or heat exchangers and are available for both domestic and industrial applications. The glass lets the sun heat through while protecting the panel from external weather conditions and preventing the panel from cooling while exposed to cold air.
Solar panels
There are many different technologies available to suit various requirements, from domestic systems to utility scale. Photovoltaic panels come in various shapes and colours offering flexibility for design integration and building integrated applications (BIPV).
Solar mirrors
Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) systems use mirrors to concentrate sunlight and produce electricity from the sun at utility scale. This technology is mainly used in regions with high levels of solar irradiance. Giant mirrors glass are used to redirect accurately the maximum amounts of light towards the focal point.
Glass in appliances and electronics
Flat glass is extensively used for household appliances, office equipment, and similar applications. It is an incredible material to build displays and to connect people in a user-friendly and safe way.
Fridges
Fridges are equipped with silk-screened, tempered, edged and clipped glass for their shelves, so as to be capable of resisting shocks as well as being spill proof.
Stove tops
Stove tops and control panels are made from drilled, silk-screen printed and tempered glass in order to provide high thermal and mechanical safety as well as to create an aesthetic look.
Oven doors
Oven doors are made of tempered glass. They are engineered to resist very high temperatures and to avoid cooks from being burnt.
Scanners
Photocopiers, scanners, and fax machines all use highly transparent glass sheets to support document imaging.
Smartphones and tablets
n smartphones and tablets, Glass mainly covers the external casing. Of course, glass is best suited for this kind of products because of its transparency and resistance, but also because it doesn’t attenuate radio signals, which means that internal antennas can be used. It is a very specific type of flat glass that is used to enable touch-screen technologies. In fact, you are touching flat glass probably more often that you ever thought!
Computers and digital displays
Anti-reflective glass is used to reduce the glare that reflects off televisions, computer screens, glass cases and other electronic displays. In addition, self cleaning glass can be used for outdoor digital signage.