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No longer a second-rate substitute for quality materials, a new generation of plastics is emerging as the building material of choice for many architects and designers.

By Barbara Knecht

Peter Pfau and others have found ways to push the use of off-the-shelf acrylics and polycarbonates to dazzling effects. In the conversion of Green Glen, a former food-service supply operation in San Francisco, into a multimedia office complex, Pfau used a commercially available system of polycarbonate glazing, typically used for greenhouses, to remake the 25-foot-high facade around a new stair. The polycarbonate panels can be extruded to any length that can be transported to the site. “Polycarbonate carries light well; it bounces around the cells for an amazing effect,” said Pfau. “And because it is such a hard material, there is no concern about scratching or damage in an exterior application.” In their Green Glen project, the architects increased the thermal properties of the plastic by sandwiching the aluminum frame with two 3¼8-inch layers that were translucent green on the exterior and translucent white on the interior. The interior wall is washed with floor-mounted lights, which create very different lighting effects in the day and night, and inside and out.

Bathroom walls of polycarbonate divide and define spaces in both houses. The degree of opacity at 216 Alabama (left) or the addition of color at 1603 Random Road (right) are used to vary the effects of light and shadow.
216 Alabama and 1603 Random Road Lawrence, Kansas Architect: Dan Rockhill, Kent Spreckelmeyer, Studio 804, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas Date of completion: 2000, 2001 Fabricators and manufacturers: Lexan (polycarbonate) from GE Structural Plastics

Polycarbonates are popular with the graduate students in Studio 804, a design-build studio taught by Professor Dan Rockhill at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Students design and build a house that is sold to a low- to moderate-income family. Design-build is conducive to understanding the possibilities and limits of materials. “Plastic has more flexibility and is more forgiving than glass,” said Rockhill. “We can work with the material ourselves on site, drilling holes, cutting it, fitting it up.” Last year, they enclosed the bathrooms of a house called 216 Alabama with double layers of translucent polycarbonate. The walls, which have the opacity of skim milk, provide the spatial divisions of the interior; the ghosts of the plumbing pipes and the aluminum structural frame are visible within the wall, but there is complete privacy within the room itself.

A 2001 residential project called Random Road had a design that called for stacked bathrooms, and the effect was varied this time by coloring the polycarbonate. Half-inch-thick clear sheets were sanded with a floor sander to “cloud” them, and then they were painted. “The paint is made exclusively for plastic and results in a translucency more like a stain,” explained Rockhill. On-site experimentation led to the final solution: painting one surface of the plastic to get the balance of privacy and translucence they sought.