Contemporary architecture continues to make extensive use of glass, a material characterised by a transparency that gives that sense of lightness and immateriality that many architects look for when they project their works. Moreover, with the developments in the field of glass working, glass can now be widely used not only to build windows or glass walls, but in some cases even to realise the external structure or the supporting structure of the building. As mentioned above, this would not be possible without some inventions that have allowed glass to expand its scopes enhancing its performance.
An important example of this is given by glass films, which are now used for many different reasons. Films are used, for example, in those buildings in which glass predominates, but where it is necessary to protect the privacy of the people who are inside, or the goods that are exposed, but also to decorate glass walls and windows. It is self-evident that films lend themselves to different uses in different contexts, like offices, palaces, shops and much more.
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One of the reasons why films are used is privacy protection. In some places, like banks and offices, but also restaurants, glass walls might contrast with the need for discretion of the people who are inside these buildings, but with the privacy films that make the glass opaque in part or completely this problem is easily solved. Opaque glasses can also be used as a decoration, as they let you create original drawings on the wall to break its monotony. Glass films, indeed, are also used for decorative reasons.
But films are useful also for other reasons. A glass building might cause some drawbacks, deriving from the fact that glass lets the sun rays in, generating heat, without letting them out. This might cause an excessive increase in temperature, but with reflective films, which are able to reject sun rays up to 80%, rooms remain cool. In this way we certainly help saving energy: decreasing the heat, even the use of air conditioning decreases. Reflective films are also used to oppose solar glare and to protect the furniture and the goods that are exposed to sunlight, preventing in this way their discolouring.
In addition to prevent the excessive heating of the interior, window films also allow to reduce the leakage of the heat produced by heating systems. In this case we use low emissivity films, which reduce wastes and maintain a comfortable temperature inside the buildings.
Last but not least, films are used also for security reasons: security films protect glasses from breaking, which might be caused by an act of vandalism, by an attempt of breaking in or by an accidental bump, turning glass structures into solid and safe, not only beautiful, buildings.
