SEFAR® Architecture Vision Crystallizes in Belarus

DEPEW, NY… The Belarusian Potash Company’s new headquarters features a SEFAR® Architecture Vision glass interlayer, offering occupants an unobstructed view of the outside world and producing a beautiful and soothing work environment. Inside and outside, the visually striking structure draws heavily on symbolism in its design.

The shining red atrium’s symbolic resonance stems from SEFAR Architecture Vision AL 250/25 fabric, laminated in UAB Glassbei Balti glass. The twill-woven fabric has a mesh opening of 55 percent and is coated with aluminum. The coating is digitally printed in red to mimic potash’s color.

The Belarusian Potash Company exports 33 percent of the world’s potash, and that substance’s components inspired its headquarters’ floor plan. Architects Varabyeu Partners designed the eight-story building to symbolize a crystal of sylvinite, the ore that comprises potash. Their vision culminates in a reflective and refractive structure with a fully-glazed façade. The design includes a full-height atrium, stylized as a crystal, that unites the building’s two wings.

A pattern of dented lines and sharp corners in its glass lamination produces a stunning shimmering pattern that blurs the boundaries between the building’s interior and the landscape around it.

“SEFAR Architecture Vision laminated glass combines aesthetic with function. It allows the façade to creatively mirror the building’s purpose, while creating a beautiful work environment,” says Peter Katcha, Director of North American Sales. “It is not only attractive, but it also offers functional benefits such as improved thermal performance and glare protection for those inside.”

SEFAR Architecture Vision is a metal-coated precision fabric interlayer, typically laminated within glass or other transparent materials, to create unique aesthetic design possibilities in exterior glass facades, windows and interior and decorative glass partition wall systems.

Vision fabrics are also printable with UV-stabilized inks to produce Pantone colors, patterns, and other design effects.  With its unique metal coatings and mesh configurations, Vision improves the thermal insulating qualities for reducing solar heat gain while allowing for light transmission and unobstructed views.  Vision materials can be metal coated on one or both sides to produce the desired effect.

SEFAR Architecture Vision fabrics are available in five fabric density configurations and each can be coated with five different metal coatings: Aluminum, Aluminum/Copper, Chrome, Copper,and Titanium  – ultimately providing 25 different combinations for Vision products. They feature plain or twill weaves in a variety of aperture percentages (25-70%) and light transmission percentages (18-60%).

For more information about SEFAR Architecture Vision, visit http://www.sefar.us/vision.