Anything but ordinary is the 46,500-square metre "Sluishuis" (Lock House) currently under construction in Amsterdam IJburg. Like a sculptural water bridge between the city and the countryside, partly "floating" above Lake IJ, exciting living space is being created here. Some of the 442 flats are positioned at a steep angle above the water.
The windows installed there at a spectacular angle place unusually high demands on the glazing: for the residents, they must be safe to walk on, i.e. they must be fall-proof; for the boats passing below, they have to be treated as overhead glazing.
Environmentally certified Pyrobel glass
Pyrobel fire-resistant glass of protection class EI60 was chosen. The environmentally certified glass also supports the ecological concept of the building, which with an energy efficiency coefficient (EPC) of -0.01 should generate more energy than it requires.
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The structure is designed so that the flats benefit from a great deal of daylight. The ecological concept is also reflected in the energy design, which intelligently combines many technologies, such as triple insulating glass, heat recovery from the ventilation systems, district heating and heat pumps for hot water and cooling, and solar panels.
How did AGC developed the glass together with the facade builder?
AGC Pyrobel developed the fire-resistant glazing for the Sluishuis in close collaboration with the metal construction company MC Kersten of Amsterdam. This was a complex special project, as it involved walk-on EI60 glazing for all windows that project out onto the water.
Profiles and frames (Jansen VISS Fire) were custom-made by MC Kersten, the glass had to meet high requirements for airtightness in addition to fire protection, fall-protection and walkability as well as for overhead glazing because of boats sailing below.
Windows over water difficult to reach in case of fire
In the Sluishuis, the size of the entire structure is 1250 x 3000 mm, which is another reason why Pyrobel fire-proof glass with 60 minutes of fire resistance and the highest EI classification was chosen, as the flats projecting over the water are difficult for emergency services to reach in case of fire.
The glass, installed at a slope of around 30 per cent, has a total thickness of 74 mm. It is built up of a Pyrobel T EI60 35H glass pane on the outside and a coated 888.8 construction of specially tempered glass on the inside. The fire-resistant glass package was positioned on the outside so that it could be walked on. The glass achieves a Ug value of 1.1 W/(m2 K).
Pyrobel safety glass tested under hardness conditions
The dedicated test of the glass set extremely high standards: While the glass is normally tested in vertical installation, here it was tested in horizontal installation so that it could be installed at angles of inclination from 0 to 80 degrees.
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Pyrobel actually achieved more than 90 minutes of fire resistance instead of the required 60 minutes. In order to safely lift the frames with the thick glass packages into the facade, the metal construction company developed a special assembly procedure, because the total weight of about 600 kilos each was too much to transport them indoors in the normal way. In the end, they were lowered from the ceiling through the facade into the flats.
As AGC Pyrobel confirms, the complex project benefited from the excellent cooperation between metal construction and glass manufacturer from planning to completion.
About the Pyrobel glass used
All of AGC's fire-resistant glazing has been awarded the Cradle-to-Cradle Silver certificate, which is intended to make it easier for architects and planners to certify buildings according to environmental standards such as Leed and Breeam, and to enable circular material cycles - thus conserving resources and the CO2. Detailed technical information on Pyrobel is available at:
