Pilkington Suncool's Grand Success

A new house designed with high quality Pilkington glazing as an integral feature has won the Best New Home category at the prestigious Grand Designs Awards.

The beautifully designed, four bedroom house in Somerset uses 45m2 of solar control glass, Pilkington Suncool™ Brilliant 66/33, to form the majority of the home’s ground floor. The glass walls are an impressive design feature in an ingenious combination of form and function which has already seen the house receive a national accolade - overall winner in the Telegraph’s Homebuilding and Renovating Awards.

The house was designed and built by its owners, architects Jim and Rebecca Dyer of RD Architects Ltd. After finding and falling in love with the site, located in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, they decided glazing was perfect for the ground floor of their new home. Rebecca explains: “The house sits in a mature landscaped setting and the full height wrap around glazing helps to take advantage of the wonderful surroundings and creates the feeling of the outside coming in.”

Rebecca and Jim took full advantage of the solar control possibilities of Pilkington Suncool™ Brilliant in their design. Rebecca continues: “We wanted to make sure the house wouldn’t overheat in the summer, but also keep heat in during the winter, and the glazing has performed fantastically. Our heating bills are very low in the winter – we only need our under-floor heating on for a couple of hours a day, which is enough to keep the ground floor warm.”

The specification for the glazing was made by Prism Architectural, whose Managing Director, Anton Price, said: “We work regularly with Pilkington and have a great relationship with them. For this project we were in close consultation with Pilkington Architectural to make sure the glass could function correctly in the design and we’re delighted to have been involved in a project that has been such a great success.”

Pilkington Suncool™ Brilliant’s solar control properties and low emissivity enable architects and installers to specify glazing in large amounts, free from the danger of massive heat loss through the glass. The glazing reflects large amounts of solar radiation while preventing internal heat from escaping and can be specified with a range of options including colour and light transmittance.

For more information visit www.pilkington.co.uk/suncool