The Pines – Sandblast Etched and Laminated Glass Design
Working on private homes can be a uniquely challenging experience. As a glass design firm we often find ourselves in somewhat longer negotiations over the exact composition of the products we supply. If the owner is personally involved in the project, then the quality standards that we routinely meet come into even sharper relief than usual. Of course that level scrutiny is not something we shy away from and is only right, when you consider the intensely personal and private relationships people have with their homes.
We have worked on a wide array of private properties all over the world and the heightened feeling of responsibility you get when interpreting such a personal vision never wavers. Your motivation can go far beyond the need to make the best glass designs, produce a beautiful piece of glass art, or maintain your reputation in a competitive industry. It can take you into a space where it becomes difficult to extract yourself from the feeling of “would I really be happy with this in my own home?” Even if you don’t personally like a design, the need to take it to what might be an unattainable level is ever present.
The following images show one of our most recent private home projects. Unusually, it was local to us and the client had a unique vision of what was needed. We are often proud of our ability to create something that helps invest a space with that intense personal and private beauty that is the hallmark of a great home. Here we can say, with confidence, that we did that.
Thomas Walmsley.
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- The stylised tree motif seen here was prevalent throughout the project.
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- Each panel in this series was hand decorated with glass beads and gold paint
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- Each panel was waterjet cut to ensure a perfect fit in the lamination.
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- The panels featured here are all curved and laminated.
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- All our laminated products are perfectly suited for moisture rich environments.
Abingdon School Chapel – Mynheer Windows
Every so often relationships come along that can define who you are and what you do with your life. This is true in our business, as much as in our personal lives. We have had the priviledge to strike such a relationship with Ecclesiastical artist Nicholas Mynheer. Daedalian has worked with him numberous times in the past, most recently mentioned here on our Blog about Islip Church. But our relationship, and particularly the artistic relationship between our Design Head Davia and Nick, goes back to the early 2000′s.
Abingdon School Chapel has been a project nine years in the making and was completed just over a week ago. This project was a unique opportunity in ecclesiastical architecture, as it is one of the few complete re-fits occuring in Britain’s ancient Christian places of worship and as such, it was not a chance Nick would pass by lightly. The earliest work we did on the project was finished in 2004 and constituted nine Altar windows. The remaining windows that we have just installed fullfil Nick’s vision for windows which not only beautify the space, but have a pastoral function, teaching the boys about how their lives at the school relate to their god.
With his unique style and dedication to the Christian faith Nick has put himself at the forefront of ecclesiastical design in Britain and we are delighted to take part in his vision.
We will be covering more of Abingdon School Chapel in a future blog installment, where we will talk more about Nick and Davia’s relationship, the function of the windows and the technical qualities behind the work, and most importantly be featuring more images of these beautiful windows!
Kiln Formed Glass Design – J Pullan and Sons – Joseph’s Well
Today’s post focuses on a project we completed recently for Leeds based building contractor and property developer J. Pullan & Sons. We created this unique kiln formed glass design for the redevelopment of Joseph’s Well – a former clothing factory in Leeds – which features extensively throughout the building in office doors, as hand rails and most notably, as tread plates retrofitted into the original Victorian cast iron central stair well.
In order to make such a considerable structure sound our team of technicians had to do more than simply supply toughened safety glass. Each tread plate is in fact made from three separate panels of glass, laminated together. In this case, due to the heavily textured surface of the kiln formed design, we were unable to use our preferred EVA laminating method. This meant us using a process called “cold pour” lamination; whereby liquid resin is sandwiched between two or more glass panels. This process can be tricky, but it allowed us to bond the heavily textured surface of the kiln formed glass to the flat safety glass that supports it.
Going to these lengths meant that the stairs in Joseph’s Well are as safe as they are impressive; especially with LED lighting along the back edge of each tread casting a serous light through the stairs. In addition the same patterned glass was used for 3 metre high office doors and, as a first for us, lead crystal rod was used as hand railing.
Despite the production hurdles we managed to supply just what the client wanted, so much so that a subsequent boardroom table, in the same style, was ordered immediately afterwards.
If we say so ourselves, we were impressed by the finished scheme and we hope you are too.
If you have any questions regarding this, or any other project, please get in touch with us.
Warm regards,
The Daedalian Team.
Kiln formed glass design
One of our current projects is at a converted clothing factory in Leeds, manufacturing a new kiln formed glass design for glass stair treads, glass doors, glass boardroom table and glass reception desk.
This project is due to be completed soon, more blog entries and photographs to follow
A Daedalian project pops up on Strictly Come Dancing!
Our glass-work in the Beaufort Bar at the Savoy Hotel made a brief appearence on Saturdays’ Strictly Come Dancing, when Anita Dobson and her partner Robin Windsor were filmed dancing in the famous London hotel.
You can see them on BBC iPlayer here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b016p9z1/Strictly_Come_Dancing_Series_9_Week_4/
It’s about 1 hr 20 minutes in…..
Laminated curved glass design Hilton Hotel BAKU, Azerbaijan
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- Sheer Delight laminated glass panel
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- Curved laminated Sheer Delight glass
We were recently specified by ARA Design, London for glass design at the new Hilton Hotel, Baku, Azerbaijan.
We supplied 750 laminated glass panels from our Sheer Delight range. They are curved and used to clad the concrete support columns in the hotels’ reception area.
Hopefully we’ll have some photographs of the finished work soon
New website!
First, apologies to those of you eagerly awaiting updates from the world of Daedalian Glass Design. Thanks to both of you for your continuing support.
We have been away from newsletters and blog posts for the last couple of months while we prepare for today. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the new Daedalian Glass Design website!
As part of our ongoing efforts to bring to you more superior products and services, we are excited to offer the design community an all new website with all new features! Along with some original elements, like the products and design service section there are two important new sections.
You can now get to know the team here at Daedalian, by way of our new Profile page. In this section you can find out a little bit about the senior staff here, as well as profiles for our Associate Artists; the highly creative people who work in other media with whom we collaborate repeatedly, to great effect.
Another new insight is our Technical page. Here you can find information regarding the manufacturing capabilities and limits of many forms of glass working. We hope this section will provide a resource for Architects, Designers and private individuals alike, to get a better idea of how we can help them and where our glass might best be applied. We are always on the end of the phone, or email, for specific enquiries, but we want to offer not just the visual delights of our glass, but the knowledge to better understand the material.
Beyond these main updates we have streamlined the interface, making the site clearer to understand and navigate, with a clean, light design.
We are really pleased with the way it has all turned out and we hope you will be too. If you have any questions, comments or feedback, please get in touch and let us know.
The Islip Big Bike Ride – 27th March 2011
Davia and Chris Walmsley along with their son Joe and his partner Becca took part in The Big Bike Ride on Sunday 27 March 2011.
Setting off from Westminster Abbey cycling the 65 miles to St Nicholas Church in Islip, Oxfordshire. It turned out to be a beautiful spring day cycling through the Chilterns to Great Missenden and then onto Islip. There were some 100 cyclists in all and the journey took about 7 hours with several welcome refreshment stops manned by volunteers from the church. We are quite new to cycling and were somewhat apprehensive at first – there are some big hills in the Chilterns, a bit tough going up but exhilerating coming down. This wasn’t a race, of course, so we took our time and felt remarkably well at the finish, this could become quite addictive! And what a very pleasant surprise as we climbed up the last short hill to St Nicholas’s Church to clapping and cheering onlookers, this must be like “Le Tour”
A thoroughly enjoyable day, we can only thank the good people of Islip for their support and hospitality and wish them great success with their fund raising efforts.
Anyway, back to work, we have a very big screen to make!!
Etched Designs: Susan Parker
Drawing on our strong history of collaboration with non-glass artists on bespoke projects, we have extended this relationship to create a new range of standard designs. Working with Yorkshire based Artist and Architect Susan Parker; we have used our design and manufacturing experience to bring her naturalistic style to a versatile glass product. Ideal as screening, windows, or doors these new etched designs have been layered on both sides of the glass to create their multi-tonal, 3 dimensional effects.
As with all our etched, sandblasted designs you can be assured of their long term quality thanks to our use of “Clearshield” low maintenance surface protection, on all our sandblasted products. For more information visit www.ritec.co.uk
The Roman Project – Chester HQ
Chester HQ is a new Office, Hotel and Retail developments adjacent to Chester Racecourse.
Daedalian were commissioned to produce a 50 mm thick Laminated Glass figured of a Roman Lady. The figure was sandblasted and the lamination contains genuine Roman artefacts with in the lamination.
