Facade, Reading

The English town of Reading in the Royal County of Berkshire has gained one more architectural attraction: The office building 'One Reading Central' with its 38-metre-high piece of art printed on the glass facade, which forms the townscape; it is located directly at the entrance to the railway station and, therefore, is one of the first buildings visitors will see. In order to get the impressive piece of art onto the glass panes, the motif by the London glass designer Graham Jones was first digitized and then transferred onto the glass surface by Interpane at their Hildesheim facility using ceramic digital printing. The new office building is also an energy-efficient construction: With the thermal insulation glazing iplus neutral E in the unheated stairway and ipasol neutral solar control glazing in the offices, the energy requirements are so low that the building has achieved a BREEAM rating of 'Excellent'.

Section 106 of the English 'Town & Country Planning Act' from 1990 dictates to 'bring art into the towns' and make it freely available to everyone. This not only refers to monuments or statues but also includes buildings. One Reading Central, the largest office building in town with more than 20,000 m² of office space over ten storeys, is a perfect example. An interplay of light blue and mellow green tones on an attractive glass facade: The flowery piece of art on the facade displays detailed structures and delicate shapes, in which even some brush strokes are visible.

The draft was transferred using ceramic multicolour digital printing. For this, the picture had to be digitised, saved into a file, and typographically transformed. During this process, the graphic designers from Interpane worked in close cooperation with the artist. In the end, the computer-based version consisted of 55 layers with individual colours and shapes. Using this data, the printing machine transferred the picture onto the glass at high resolution (up to 720 dpi) using special print heads. Subsequent burning-in of the ceramic paint permanently fused the motif onto the glass surface. It is in this way that it is made light resistant, scratch and abrasion proof, and can be cleaned like conventional glass. Some more interesting facts: The preparation time for the artwork was six weeks; printing onto a total of 100 glass panes with a total area of 285 m² only took two weeks. The printed glass elements were later processed into insulation glazing by placing a second coated pane behind it. The result was an iplus thermal insulation glazing - an ideal combination of aesthetics and energy efficiency.