PITTSBURGH, August 17, 2017 — Chicago O’Hare Airport’s Terminal 5 was designed more than 20 years ago, so when it recently underwent a renovation and expansion, architects specified Starphire Ultra-Clear^® glass by Vitro Architectural Glass to enhance the original building’s existing architecture and continue it through the mezzanine renovation and expansion.

Designed by Epstein Global and commissioned by the Westfield Group, a two-story interior curtainwall serves as a partition separating secured and non-secured areas of the airport terminal. Starphire^® glass panels fabricated by Goldray Industries, line up against one another and create a continuous image that shows the gradual changes in color and texture that can be seen when heading inland from Lake Michigan to Chicago and on to Illinois’ rural cornfields. The panels were created with Dip-Tech digital printing technology, which uses a flat-bed printer to print high-resolution images on glass.

The panels depict lakes, shallow shores, city buildings and farmland in a collage of rectangles and squares. The art was inspired by NASA satellite imagery. Transparent rectangles filter natural light from windows and skylights without diminishing the curtainwall’s privacy function.

“Starphire^® glass has less of a green tinge when compared with clear glass,” said Roxanne Laverty, Goldray marketing coordinator. “To ensure the best quality of colors on the digitally printed image, Starphire^® glass was the obvious choice.”

Introduced in 1990, Starphire Ultra-Clear^® glass remains the clearest, most transparent commercial float glass available today, with visible light transmittance (VLT) of 91 percent in a standard ¼ inch (6 millimeter) thickness. To learn more about Starphire^® glass, visit www.vitroglazings.com or call 1-855-VTRO-GLS (887-6457).

Solarban^®, Sungate^®, Starphire^® and Starphire Ultra-Clear^® are registered trademarks owned by Vitro.

About Vitro Architectural Glass

Vitro Architectural Glass, part of Vitro, S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV: VITROA), is the largest glass producer in the Western Hemisphere, manufacturing a range of industry-leading, energy-efficient, high-performance products such as Solarban^®, Sungate^® and Starphire Ultra-Clear^® glasses. Committed to continually raising the industry standard for sustainability, Vitro was the first U.S. glass manufacturer to have its complete collection of architectural glass products earn Cradle to Cradle Certified^® status and the first North American manufacturer to publish third-party verified Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for flat glass and processed glass products. Additionally, as of April 2024, all Vitro architectural glass products meet the Top 20% Low Embodied Carbon (LEC) material Global Warming Potential (GWP) threshold the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) established pursuant to the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and related guidance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Vitro operates seven glass production facilities across North America, four residential glass fabrication plants in Canada and one of the world’s largest glass research and development facilities in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. For more information, please visit VitroGlazings.com.

Media Contact:
Robert J. Struble
Vitro Architectural Glass
412-820-8138
rstruble@vitro.com
www.vitroglazings.com