05 April 2013.
Modern urban architecture is presented in a variety of styles. There are buildings similar to palaces, locks, ships with the most different and bizarre form. Now they are gaining popularity of a house in the form of a polyhedron or cylinder. The world hobby has reached Russia. Residential buildings of unusual uniforms are built in different cities and fall into both the premium class and the budget sector. Such buildings are convenient from many points of view: an built -up territory is more rationally used, the structure of internal communications and access roads is optimized, and “convex” external walls can ensure constant sunlight entering the apartments.
Round houses, according to experts, are very durable, they can be built without the use of reinforcement and achieve a very large number of storeys. For example, in London the New Town Tower project is considered. The building of 500 floors and one and a half kilometers high should become a kind of vertical microdistrict with its infrastructure objects, including entertainment centers and cinemas. If the project is implemented, 100 thousand inhabitants of the British capital can get housing at once.
Of course, to build a cylindrical building is not both light tasks, and during construction you need to take into account many nuances and features. This is especially true for glazing.
The usual plastic windows can be used in cylindrical buildings, but with a number of reservations. Static and wind loads on the window blocks in this case are significantly different from the loads in the usual building, therefore, in some cases, an increase in the frame, a change in the size of the wings and even the location of the loops may be required.
If panoramic glazing is made in a round house, then large windows are made from a large number of rectangular “pieces” connected at an angle. Usually elements are pre -assembled in production, and at the facility itself it was finally adjusted under the building. To connect the elements, a reinforced pipe from PVC with adapters was most often used, which allows you to connect parts of the structure at an angle from 850 to 1800. There are standard connectors.
However, the combination of linear segments of the window profile cannot solve the problem of glazing a cylindrical building to the fullest. Therefore, builders resort to the help of “round” windows.
Such windows have a rounded frame, which complicates the process of window production. If the frame is made of aluminum, then it is bend on special roller machines with a cold rental, which provides a higher (2.5 times) price than on rectangular structures. The minimum bending radius should be equal or more than the triple profile height. With wooden profiles, the situation is even more complicated, since at first a polygonal glued workpiece is made, which needs to be “ironed” on a milling machine.
Experts believe that the best rounded windows are made of PVC profile. In this case, the profile segment is heated in hot glycerin or a special furnace, and the contour of the future frame on which vacuum suckers are drawn on the mounting table. A woodplastic conductor is laid out on them, according to which a heated and softened profile bends. After cooling, the structure acquires the desired shape and stiffness.
It is important to remember that the manufacture of windows for buildings of an unusual shape must be approached very responsibly. Specialists of the window company must have certain skills and qualifications, take into account the geometry of the building so that in the future the window does not “sag” and does not cause problems to the owners of the room. The company itself must have a certificate from the manufacturer of window profiles for translucent structures.
Do not forget about some restrictions on the parameters of non -standard windows. The diameter of a non -standard window that has a single -chamber double -glazed window should not be more than 120 cm, and the window itself should be equipped with a horizontal or vertical jumper (impost). If we talk about the proportions in general, then the height of this jumper should not exceed half the width of the window.
Rounded windows are produced only to order, and the production process is 5-15 days longer than the production process of the standard design. The price in each case depends on the complexity of the structure and is calculated individually