A point supported glass panel works by fastening the glazing panel to a cast metal standoff. The cast metal standoff (casting) is then fastened to an adjacent structural system, typical constructed of painted steel or aluminum.The renderings below show the point support casting I designed for the new food court wall and feature glass skylight at Erin Mills Town Centre in Toronto, ON.
This is a shot of the underside of a typical node in a point support glazing system. Each glass panel is supported at four corners. The thick black lines are the structural silicone used to seal the roof glass (or facade). You might be wondering what the small dots on the glass are. This is what's known as a "frit" pattern. It's a technique used by glass manufacturers to give the glass panel the appearance of being somewhat opaque. From a distance, the eye has more trouble seeing the individual dots, and instead clumps them all together into what appears to be a translucent glass panel.
Another shot of a typical point support node, but from above the glass. This particular glass panel is a laminated unit, consisting of three, 10mm thick panes of glass.
A close up shot of the casting. The glass was removed from this shot for clarity. The surfacing for the casting was done using Solidwork 2013. I then exported it to Rhino V5 for meshing. It was then exported to Modo 501 for final rendering.
Another close-up shot of the casting showing the twisting surface geometry.
