We were 4 or 5 employees and just starting actually
when the client called us it was to give an opinion about a facade that created troubles for him.
Every year 3 to 5 tempered panels of glass exploded and fell down
And when that happens in The Courts of Justice in Lille, that is a problem.
It makes a huge noise. I attended once such glass falling down
it is really like an explosion.
There was no architect. It was an architectural competition but it was mainly a competition for technical consultants or facade designers like we are.
The idea was to first start analysing the building to figure out why the glass were breaking.
We found out that the clamps that held the glass together and fixed them to the cantilevered glass fins were not designed in the correct way.
So after some time some glasses slid down and became self standing while other would remain hung.
How can you dismount such a facade? That really became quite a complicated question.
Because if you do it glass by glass for the contractor it was really dangerous;
If you dismount self standing glass, you must take it from the top
If you dismount hung glass you must take it from the lower part.
So when you don't know, you can't start from the middle right?
So we just decided that the best way, and maybe the only way, was to explode all the glass at the same time.
And that's what we did. We found a contractor for that and on a Sunday morning when the whole court of justice was empty... only the TV crew was there because they wanted to attend such things.
And in 1 second ten tonnes of glasses fell to the ground.
And that's it and then we can start our project.
The environment of this project is a very typical building from the late 60s, it's a very brutal architecture in fact. With really beautiful details. It's a very nice building by Jean Willerval.
And our idea was to replace the glass facade with a more traditional glass facade; because the client really hated innovation.
He just said "I want a Normal facade, just Normal". But for us normal is still somethign in relation to the building.
So we started thinking, how can you make a glass facade, a traditional curtain wall but with minimal visual impact..
So we started designing a very compact mullion. And to make it very compact there are many ways of doing this.
The first point is to use Steel instead of Aluminium. So that's what we did.
The second was to say we use 3 fixing points instead of two; You can reduce the deflection by 2 this way.
You can say instead of having different parts that are fixed together the whole profile is actually structural.
So in the end the result was in a profile; 185mm deep by 80mm wide, that could span 12m without any problem.
The nice thing about this is that the whole environment is made of raw materials. And raw steel has the problem of corrosion, we know.
So we just decided to do it in stainless steel.. maybe a bit luxury. But extruded steel is a technology that uses a French patent from the late 19th Century
and although very few suppliers use that technology we found one in Germany, who said "Okay let's try to do it". But it was a very heavy profile for him and he was not used to doing it. 50kg per meter... it's really huge.
So we started designing this mulion a little tapered on the inside to even reduce the visual impact further.
And the construction went in fact quite well afterwards, but still every small detail had to be designed in a very special way.
The mullions in fact are the only frames visible. There are no transoms just a butt connection between glasses.
The setting blocks are small triangular pieces of machined steel that are fixed to the mullion and in the end it's a very minimalist impact.
You could say that this facade is fully glass, almost. And for us this is really a good example about less is more.
Yeah. It's hard to do less in fact. So we are happy with this project. And the client is extremely happy.
He feels he has a traditional curtain wall and we feel he has an extroadinary curtain wall.
A sitting room has a hand-painted ceiling frieze and a stone mullion fireplace.
From the forbes.com
An original stone mullion window is still present on the ground floor on the west front.
From the en.wikipedia.org
It has two-light mullion windows flanking a built-up door opening.
From the en.wikipedia.org
Stone houses with weathered walls, mullion windows and old wooden doorways convey a medieval atmosphere.
From the telegraph.co.uk
If the damage were between the two ganged windows, moisture could be penetrating around the mullion.
From the dailyherald.com
So I toil away evenings and weekends, making sure that every single mullion on every single window is painted.
From the post-gazette.com
Another way to limit deflections in a given section is to add steel reinforcement to the inside tube of the mullion.
From the en.wikipedia.org
The Iowa Legislature appropriated $3 mullion for fiscal year 2010, $2 million for 2011, and $6.5 million for 2012.
From the desmoinesregister.com
Actually, it's the central mullion of a window and its shadow, widened and dislocated by perception and imagination.
From the time.com
More examples
A nonstructural vertical strip between the casements or panes of a window (or the panels of a screen)
A mullion is a structural element which divides adjacent window units, also known in the commercial door industry as a piece of hardware that divides the opening of a pair of doors. When dividing windows, it consists of a small column or pilaster supporting round or ogival arches. ...
(mullions) stone piers dividing a window into two or more lights.
(Mullions) The wooden divisions between panes of glass on windows.
(Mullions) Material used to divide window lines to allow for the attachment of walls in creating rooms.
(Mullions) Metal strips placed at regular intervals along a window line. They are designed to receive a wall partition in a manner ensuring a smooth, soundproof connection.
(Mullions) Small molding that divides windows into individual panes.
(Mullions) The vertical element between the stiles that acts as a divider. Found in Bahama shutters.
(Mullions) Vertical members between window units. They are sometimes confused with muntins, which are secondary framing members that hold multiple panes of glass in the sash. Other parts of the sash include stiles (the outside vertical members) and rails (the top and bottom horizontal members).