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Originally Posted by Urbanthusiat
CDR renderings aren't gospel. There are still changes that can and do take place after the final public comment. I'm processing change orders monthly for things already under construction. You do not need to have everything bought out to start construction. A change like this does not violate the spirit of the public approvals and would not require going back to the City for re-approval. Yes it has to be built to spec, but that doesn't have to be finalized to get a building permit. Either way, this doesn't ruin it for me, this is still a great building.
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You're right, the City permit process could care less whether its curved glass or not. Just remember that the drawings make things look as good as possible. In reality my guess is that each one of those flat panels will be a metal frame around 2" wide, so when one butts up against the next one there will be 4"+- of metal.
With curved glass this would have been a very sharp building. Without, well IMO, the glass will look cheap. I hope this doesn't take away too much from the overall building.
My understanding is that the cost goes wild because with insulated glass each individual panel is made up of two panes of glass with slightly different radius, that have to held to tight tolerances to fit into the small metal frame that keeps the two pieces of glass separated. This creates an air tight seal. When you see a window with cloudy glass that shouldn't be that way, its often because this seal has failed. Not too common these days, but 20 years ago it was a real hassle.
Curved glass used to be made by reheating a piece of glass to just a certain temperature then draping it over some type of form where it had to cool. So each different radius had to have its own form. Too hot and the glass could flow and not hold its uniform thickness, too cool and it wouldn't drape. The thickness is important to fit into the small frame that creates insulated glass (IG). But for all I know, the process could have been changed, been computerized.
Apple's new headquarters building has huge slightly curved glass going around the inside and outside of the donut. All the fuzz there was that Jobs and Foster, the architect, wanted pieces of glass just as large as possible.
There's reasons why we don't see something that looks as sharp as curved glass. If it was just a little more expensive, I'm sure it would be more common. I think there might be some curved glass on the PSFS building, but that's all I can think of. Something to keep your eyes open to try to spot.