Remarkably efficient Guardian SunGuard® glass clads exterior of Poznan’s landmark Pixel Allegro office building

Bertrange, Luxembourg, November 24, 2015 – The Pixel Allegro office building in Poznan, Poland, is among the most interesting and beautiful architectural structures built in the city in recent years. It is an excellent example of the popular trend of designing more environmentally friendly buildings. This manifests itself by surrounding buildings with green spaces, consciously selecting quality construction materials, and using the building’s shape and orientation to maximize its use of natural energy sources. Considering these ambitious “green” goals, it is notable that the architects involved, JEMS Architekci, chose Guardian SunGuard® SuperNeutral 62 /34 for the structure’s extensive glass facade.

Pixel Allegro is a modern, functional and incredibly original office building. Its greatest asset undoubtedly is its unusual glass exterior with two distinctly different sides. While the north-facing side of the building is simple, smooth and understated, the south-facing part consists of spatially arranged cubes, forming a kind of chessboard. The space between the cubes is filled with diverse vegetation and wood elements that, combined with a huge roof garden, gives the building a truly ecological feel. Pixel Allegro, however, has earned its environmentally friendly reputation not only due to the ubiquitous greenery, but also because of the materials used in its construction – most notably, Guardian’s high-quality glass that covers most of its façade.

Guardian guards ecological standards

The designers’ objective was to create a place that is as friendly to people as it is to the natural environment. They wanted to provide maximum possible access to daylight and ensure a steady, comfortable interior temperature, while keeping energy consumption low. Using Guardian SunGuard® SuperNeutral 62/34 coated glass on the façade helps to meet these ambitious goals. This product offers excellent level of natural light transmission (62%), helps to improve the overall energy performance of the building and provides better solar protection compared to competing products, thus being the ideal glazing solution for such commercial buildings.

As for total solar energy transmission, this grade of glass has a g-value (i.e. solar factor) of just 0.34. This allows it to meet Poland’s most stringent technical requirements, which since January 2014 have applied both to residential and commercial buildings (and dictate that the g-value cannot exceed 0.35).

The use of SunGuard® SuperNeutral 62/34 for the Pixel Allegro building façade not only serves to help to eliminate unnecessary heat loss, but also to provide pleasant and comfortable internal conditions for the building's offices and social rooms. Excellent clarity of glass and a high color-rendering index help to ensure optimum brightness while minimizing the need to use artificial lighting during the day. Excellent selectivity and thermal parameters help keeping interiors cool during the hottest seasons, and pleasantly warm in winter. This significantly improves the energy balance of the entire building, resulting in reduced heating and air-conditioning costs.

For more information on Guardian SunGuard® SuperNeutral 62/34 and its use in this project, please visit www.sunguardglass.pl.

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