The floor-to-ceiling glass façade, among the cantilevered roof, is the defining feature of the room. A strong relationship with Blomberg Windows allowed AGNORA to activate on the project early, liaising with several architects to provide the perfect glass façade. AGNORA, known for its incredible customer service, commitment to quality, and pushing the envelope, worked with Blomberg to manage expectations and create an industry first.

“This was the first project we used the new ASTM C1901 standard on, which was spearheaded by our own Louis Moreau. The standard allowed us to communicate visual anisotropy to the architect, something that we’ve never been able to do before,” says James Cole, Project Manager at AGNORA responsible for managing the Caymus Winery project.

Distortion and anisotropy are a result of the tempering process (anisotropy can also occur in the lamination process as well). Distortions can be seen as roller wave, edge curl and overall bow within the lite. This phenomenon may lead to lamination issues further in the production process as well as visual “waves” seen in the glass.

Anisotropy, on the other hand, is “leopard spotting” which can be seen in the presence of polarized light such as polarized sunglasses, floors reflecting natural light, sunlight reflected from other buildings or sunlight reflected off water. Fabricators that maintain a high level of machine service will have tempering ovens that heat more homogeneously, limiting anisotropy. Further, quality fabricators take the time to correct tempering recipes for varying environmental conditions and are comfortable to straddle the line between the best quality and breakage risk.

“The original specification was zero anisotropy. This is simply not possible in heat treated glass,” says Cole. “The new standard allowed us to set a nanometer value with the architect that we could both agree on, and we ensured that no glass would surpass the agreed value. Combined with our ability to measure distortion to the 95th percentile, the customer is finally getting quantifiable values on visual performance of tempered glass. It’s a win-win.”

Further to limiting distortion and anisotropy, was the need for the interior glass walls to have little to no reflection. For this reason, Guardian Clarity was used in various configurations. As the name suggests, anti-reflective coatings minimize the amount of distracting reflections while simultaneously increasing visible light throughput.

The makeups of the interior glass included:

Intieror –
• 6mm SS Clarity laminated with PVB up to 99”x135”

IGUs –
• 5mm annealed Pilkington OptiWhite
• Kuraray SentryGlas Interlayer
• 6mm annealed Pilkington OptiWhite
• 12mm spacer
• 6mm tempered Pilkington Optiwhite

In total, there was approximately 135 IGUs up to 64” x 134” and roughly 40 anti-reflective laminates.

To fit the framing depth provided by Blomberg Windows, a 12mm spacer plus argon was used along with a 6mm tempered OptiWhite. The tempered Optiwhite was required to mitigate the chance of breakage due to unforeseen loads such as people resting against the glass (or tripping). In the event of breakage, the “safety glass” would also crumble into the small pebble pattern.

“The thinner the glass, the harder it is to control its temperature in the oven,” says Rene Govers Process Engineer at AGNORA. “There is not as much material to handle and absorb the heat so tempering very flat, low anisotropy glass is incredibly challenging at the 6mm range, and results in daily re-evaluation of our tempering recipes to meet the customer’s distortion and anisotropy requirements.”

The results are a stunningly clear façade, overlooking the very best of the Napa Valley and creating a safe yet exquisite visitor experience.

AGNORA – working to pioneer ways forward using the newest scanning equipment and standards to create better glass and better communicate with customers.