The designers of the new headquarters for Stoke-on-Trent City Council wanted to create a landmark that combined modern design with references to the rich history of pottery manufacturing in the city. Michael Metcalfe, commercial sales manager at Pilkington said: "As with much modern architecture, this building is really defined externally by its glazed facade, and the top priority was to ensure that the colours were as vibrant as possible. Standard practice when creating coloured double glazing units is to apply the colour to face four on the inner pane of glass. However, this can reduce the vibrancy of the colour, due to added reflections from the outer pane. Because we needed maximum brightness, we digitally screen printed the colours onto face two - the inside of the outer sheet of glass. We also used Pilkington Optiwhite low-iron glass for the outer pane, which has a higher level of clarity and therefore allows the colours to be seen in their truest form. We then gave the colours a boost by ensuring that the application was completely opaque, and this was done by applying a second layer of ceramic paint to the inside of the glass." A glazing system was supplied by Schueco, which allowed the facade to be constructed off-site in 3m x 1.5m sections. The south-facing units, which are more exposed to direct sunlight, used Pilkington Insulight Sun with 60/33 specification while the north facing sides, for which solar gain was less of an issue, used 70/30 - a glass that transmits more solar energy, but gives greater clarity. To see the new building, please visit: www.smithfieldstoke.com/
