Fabia Mater: SentryGlas® Expressions™ used in Rome clinic

Fabia Mater, a clinic in Rome, Italy welcomes patients and staff with large, colorful images of happy, smiling children, birds, freedom, health and joy in a customized collage made possible by the use of DuPont™ SentryGlas® Expressions™ decorative laminated glass technology.

The Fabia Mater clinic has been transformed by an extended customized collage of laminated glass with SentryGlas® Expressions™ that forms functional architectural elements of the clinic such as doors and walls. The artwork draws images from a wide variety of sources.

Family’s photo album provided customized artwork Fabia Mater is a private clinic and the Guarnieri family that owns it includes several generations of distinguished medical doctors and researchers. In a nod to Renaissance artists who used to ‘knit in’ coats of arms, private icons and symbols particular to their patrons’ families into great works of art and architecture, architect Lorenzo Berna customized the 21st century interior design architecture of Fabia Mater by consulting the Guarnieris’ photo albums to find exquisite photos of family members, taken when they were as children. This very unique way of customizing a building’s décor with images from the family’s photo album was make possible thanks to SentryGlas® Expressions™ laminated glass technology.

Part of the fabric of the building Large panels of decorative laminated glass incorporating SentryGlas™ Expressions are not employed as static exhibition pieces at Fabia Mater but are truly integrated as functional architectural elements of the clinic. The glass panels are situated at various locations in the clinic’s ground floor, for example in the clinic’s cheerful bar/cafeteria. They also double up as the door and walls to a secretary’s office (where they are the sole vehicle for natural light coming into that office) and they constitute the portal and door to a corridor leading to examination rooms. At one point they constitute part of the external façade, on the building’s ground floor. Decorative laminated glass: a safe choice for hospitals The architect for this project, Lorenzo Berna, is professor of architecture and town planning at Perugia University. He told LGN: “We used SentryGlas® Expressions™ decorative laminated glass technology as a key element of the restoration of the Fabia Mater clinic. Decorative laminated glass is used to create a far more open and light-filled reception area than before. The technology gives the building its positive new spirit. Berna added that laminated glass is essential to the project, not only because safety glass is mandatory for floor to ceiling glass panels but because the laminate protects the collage from damage. Additionally, he noted that laminated glass is suitable for use in hospitals because it eliminates the possibility of bacteria getting trapped between the glass panels, as could happen with other types of artwork. Images from a variety of sources incorporated into one artwork Fulvio Bernadini, marketing director of laminator Roberglass of Pisa, Italy explained: “A major benefit ofSentryGlas® Expressions™ technology is its flexibility to work with such a large number of diverse individual images from various sources - from photos to abstract paintings depicting chemical formulae - in hundreds of different colors and tones - in one design and at an affordable price. This means that even the smallest hospitals or clinics can now be light, colorful and creative!”

Mr Sergio Cardoni owns Green Allestimenti, a Rome commercial glass fitting company. His firm worked with architect Berna to research which decorative glass technology could be found to make Berna's architectural design dreams for Fabia Mater a reality.

Cardoni told LGN: "We first tried photographic methods, then signage, then screen printing. As soon as we read about DuPont™ SentryGlas® Expressions™ technology, we immediately realized it was the solution to our problem. It means that all the diverse images the architect wanted to gather together from his work could be easily scanned by computer and assembled digitally. The CDs were sent to America and DuPont sent us back samples to check; when we had OK'd these, we sent them to the laminator.

"I am 80 years old and have been in the glass fitting business for 50 years and I have never seen anything like this! It proves that in this business you have to be open to new ideas! I can see our firm using this technology very extensively in airports, museums, the hospitality business and also in outdoor applications like sports arenas - not to mention shops, especially luxury goods stores where clients often want to create a special decorative effect that enforces their brand."

 Case Study Download - Fabia Mater (PDF 230KB)

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