The Biggest Windows in the World
While the team at Swish are out and about around Tauranga & Mount Maunganui ensuring your windows are spotless and gleaming clean, we often ponder the age-old question in the window cleaning industry: What would it be like to clean the World’s biggest windows? Well, being industry experts, we consulted the secret book of the trade, detailing every window in the world (not actually a thing), and found these glass wonders.
Largest Curved Glass Windows
The recently built, USD$5 Billion Apple Headquarters in Cupertino, contains the largest curved glass display in the world. Apple commissioned German glass manufacturer – Seele, to design and create glass panels to wrap around the circular Apple Park. Specially made machinery was used to develop curved panels as big as 14.3 x 3 metres for the exterior, and 11 x 3 metres for the interior. Individual panels weigh as much as 3 tonnes each! Over 3,000 individual panels were used to create the seamless, ultra-modern design of the building.
Largest Modern Stained Glass Windows
The largest modern stained glass installation is located in The Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. Unveiled on April 1st, 2017, this panel was constructed by Judson Studios utilising ‘fused glass’ techniques; measuring 30 x 12.1 metres and 161 panes of coloured glass.
To create such a massive and detailed piece of glass artwork, the Studio had to move into a new manufacturing space and use a new technique of permanently embedding vivid colourations using ‘frit’, which are granulated pieces of coloured glass, through a kiln running temperatures over 1000 degrees celsius.
Largest Window in Space
The International Space Station (hovering somewhere above our heads) contains the largest window in Space, called the Cupola. Launched aboard the Space Shuttle on February 8, 2010, this represented years of work to deploy a more comprehensive viewing platform on The I.S.S. Octagonal in shape, the 3 x 1.5 metre module allowed two astronauts to be side-by-side within. Each window pane measured 80cm – the largest ever used in space. The windows are made of 4 separate panes: An outer debris pane, two 25 mm pressure panes, and an inner scratch pane. While the exact cost of each pane of glass isn’t known, the estimated cost of the Cupola and Tranquility modules sits at USD$409 million. Space isn’t cheap!
The team at Swish are experts in cleaning all kinds and formats of glass, with years of experience cleaning residential and commercial windows in Tauranga & the wider Bay of Plenty region. Feel free to visit https://swishpropertyservices.co.nz/get-a-quote/ to get a quote, or call 0274121177 to chat to the team.
