AZURE is an independent magazine working to bring you the best in design, architecture and interiors. We rely on advertising revenue to support the creative content on our site. Please consider whitelisting our site in your settings, or pausing your adblocker while stopping by.
AZURE - June 2019 - The Workspace Issue - Cover
Get 25% off Subscriptions and Single Copies

Black Friday Deals

As surfacing, textiles and woven materials are at home on walls, columns, partitions, counter facings and more. You’ve probably seen examples.

What might be less apparent are the challenges woven materials face in surfacing applications. They can be difficult to clean or maintain, a concern in high-traffic spaces where cleanliness is key, like restaurants and healthcare facilities. Routine encounters with people and their possessions can cause runs, snags or other damage that are not always easily repaired.

To mitigate these issues, encompassing woven materials in laminated glass has become a popular approach for glass manufacturers: by sandwiching the woven material between lites of glass, external impact is minimized. The challenge here is completing the lamination process without damaging or distorting the material – something easier said than done, much to the frustration of designers wanting beautiful, uniform end results.

 

That’s a problem Forms+Surfaces has considered. The development of ViviTela, a new addition to the brand’s VividGlass line, brings the rich look of woven metal to architectural laminated glass, offering a smart mix of design and performance options along the way.

ViviTela Mesh glass consists of a patterned interlayer laminated between a transparent lite of glass and a reflective glass backer. Forms+Surfaces’ proprietary, highly controlled production processes ensure precise, consistent patterns – across individual glass lites and from one lite to the next – without the runs, folds or other imperfections often seen with laminated metal or fabrics.

This means designers can confidently use ViviTela Mesh glass for projects of any size or scale, without concern for compromised visual integrity.

ViviTela Mesh patterns are captured in glass, so they’re easy to clean and maintain compared to traditional textiles, which might suffer from day-to-day use.

The product line is available in the ‘Reflect’ configuration – intended for one-sided applications, such as walls, columns or elevator interiors, where the glass will be installed against another surface.

Five patterns can each be specified in six colours – Stainless Steel, Bronze, Graphite, Nickel Bronze, Nickel Silver and White Gold – that match Forms+Surfaces’ Stainless Steel and Fused Metal colours and add to the line’s design advantages.

“By giving designers the ability to match other metals, we make it easy for them to carry a unified look across a property, whether they’re defining a new colour palette or trying to match existing materials – as is often the case with remodels,” says Julie Kazanjian, Forms+Surfaces’ VP, Product & Sales Strategy.

“ViviTela Mesh glass also allows designers to carry metal colours into a different material, without disrupting the overall visual flow,” Kazanjian continues. “If stainless steel is a key component on a project, for example, why not mix things up and use ViviTela Mesh glass with a pattern in the Stainless Steel colour for a high-impact feature wall, instead of adding more stainless steel? It can be a great way to bring a unique, updated twist to a setting.”

For designers looking for new ways to bring the rich look of woven materials into their projects, ViviTela Mesh glass presents an enduring and beautiful solution.

This content was published by Azure on behalf of Forms+Surfaces.

AZURE is an independent magazine working to bring you the best in design, architecture and interiors. We rely on advertising revenue to support the creative content on our site. Please consider whitelisting our site in your settings, or pausing your adblocker while stopping by.