Cold-Warped Glass Units Give Building Sail-Like Shape

Mike Budd takes the heat and prohibitive cost out of bending glass

Guy Lawrence/ENR Budd and his muse, architect Frank Gehry, make waves.

Until a few years ago when he happened to see a light of glass bow about 6 in. in the center, even curtain-wall designer Mike Budd didn’t realize that glass is flexible. “I was surprised it didn’t break,” says Budd, president of cladding supplier Permasteelisa Central-South, Miami.

A couple of years later when architect Frank Gehry was seeking a way to make a 10-story building resemble a ship under sail, Budd suggested cold-bending the glass units as they were installed. That would literally twist the envelope. The approach was much less costly than heat-bending glass at the factory.

The idea took and Budd’s brainstorm is credited with helping to make the Interactive Corp. headquarters in New York City an instant icon . “We’re ecstatic with it and so is the client,” says Terry L. Carbaugh, project executive on IAC for Turner Construction Co., New York City.

Like most of his Gehry adventures, Budd’s foray into cold-bent glass required something never attempted in the U.S. and never done to the same degree anywhere. Success relied on precision engineering and construction. “The entire engineering process...was due to Mike Budd’s abilities,” says Carbaugh. “I’d have to put him at the top of the class of curtain-wall designers.”

Multimedia  View Award of Excellence Luncheon and Acceptance Speech of Mike Budd April 3, 2008

Budd, fascinated with curves, calls himself “the warped guy.” He derived inspiration for IAC not only from witnessing flat glass bend under its weight but from designing cold-bent aluminum cladding for Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, which Budd worked on for 14 years.

Budd says other architects have shown interest in cold-warped glass facades since IAC. A couple of jobs are actually in discussion. And Permasteelisa is about to begin working on a 40-story Gehry building with warped glass, across from the Disney Concert Hall.

“I love to do the projects that other people are not interested in,” says Budd, who has happily worked on Gehry’s warped projects for 20 years.