Carpe Futurum is Latin for Seize the Future – it is also the name of Sweden’s latest biopower plant in Uppsala – and Pilkington Profilit™ is helping this spectacular, climate smart, sustainable project achieve its renewable agenda.
Representing one of the largest Pilkington Profilit™ structure built to date, Carpe Futurum is using renewable fuels comprising different kinds of wood-based biomass, such as recycled wood, bark, wood chips, and sawdust to supply 110 MW of heat to the local district’s heating network.
The structure, designed by Liljewall Architects, required a durable glass that would fit perfectly into the world of the pro-ecological Carpe Futurum project.
Pilkington Profilit™ is a U-shaped alkali cast glass that is translucent, but not transparent, available with or without a patterned surface on the outside and with the quality features of cast glass. It is energy-efficient, with excellent sound reduction qualities, so for the architects, the product ticked all the boxes, providing the construction qualities needed to meet the sympathetic requirements of a modern building visible from afar on Uppsala's skyline.
The Pilkington Profilit™ self-supporting channel glass U-shaped system installed in a steel construction, provided all the elements needed for practicalities, and creativity – ensuring the structure blends harmoniously, and not dominate, other city landmarks, such as its castle, cathedral and water tower.
Its ceramic colour system, supplied by Pilkington Bauglasindustrie, enables a smooth, high-quality finish. that provides excellent weather and time resistance as well as allowing creative and symbolic designs. Patterns of transparent and orange-painted channel glass, tapering as they rise, represent the process of water evaporation – the basis of electricity generation – as the water vapor cools, the extra heat is transferred through the district heating network to homes and businesses.
The façade’s vertical double-glazed structure utilises low iron, thermally toughened, heat-soaked Pilkington Profilit™ OW THS K25/60/7, and low iron, thermally toughened, heat-soaked channel glass with ceramic colour coating Pilkington Profilit™ OW Colour Design THS K25/60/7. The use of low iron glass ensures a true colour reproduction on back-painted glass channels.
The glazing can be installed vertically or horizontally without separate profiles between the glass channels, which ensure unobstructed and shadowless light transmission. The circa 4,800 square-meters façade comprises 11 glazing bands with a glass length of 2,894 mm each that are installed in thermally broken powder coated framing components.
The wide range of high-quality surface and colour channel glass finishes has allowed freedom of design and unique glass assemblies and the Uppsala biopower plant is an excellent example of how creative glass solutions can be created with the use of channel glass.
The installation of the glazing at the site's turbine building, and for the conveyor bridge, was made by Vitrea Oy, the Pilkington Profilit™ partner from Finland.
Visit the Project Reference for more photos and details - click HERE.