Glass brick

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Architectural glass brick provides an ideal combination of passage of light, and visual obscuration (visual distortion) to provide privacy. To the left, doorless labyrinth entrances separate the men's and women's sections. Near the top of the wall straight ahead, and to the upper middle, one can see long slender glass brick windows that allow fluorescent lights to be installed in a backworld space from behind, so that the lights cannot be tampered with from the space pictured here. This also provides electrical safety by keeping wiring inaccessible to the wet areas.

Glass brick, also known as glass block, is often used as an architectural element in underground parking garages, washrooms, municipal swimming baths, and other areas where privacy or visual obscuration is desired, while admitting light.

1 Glass brick for security
2 Glass brick for safety
3 Glass brick for privacy
4 Glass brick for hygiene
5 External links

[edit] Glass brick for security

Additionally, glass brick provides light without compromising security. A typical size of glass brick is 8 by 8 inches, such that it falls within the lattice of standard 8 by 16 inch cinderblock walls.

[edit] Glass brick for safety

Isolation of electrical circuits, such as lights, can be done by creating a very small room or passageway outside the area being illuminated, wherein lights are installed from behind the walls, such that no electrical leakage is possible. This also has the added advantage that vandalism and theft of bulbs, or removal of bulbs (e.g. to make the place dark to perpetrate crime) is eliminated.

The latest trend in public washrooms/changerooms is to have all the fixtures outside the room, located in backworld service entrances behind the walls. For example, a fluorescent light is 48 inches long, equivalent to six glassbricks in length. Thus glassbrick windows of width seven glassbricks (56 inches) and height one glassbrick (8 inches) are cemented into the brickwork at time of building construction. In this way, there is no way to get at the light source from within the washroom space. Additionally, splashes of water directly at the lights will have little or no adverse effect.

Alternate view of glass brick labyrinths, used to obscure clear visual line of sight into women's washroom on the left, and men's washroom on the right.

Some washrooms such as the washrooms in Dundas Square have glassbrick windows that run all the way around the washroom, to create an illusion of natural light from all directions. This requires small passageways that run all the way around the outside of the room, for servicing the light sources.

[edit] Glass brick for privacy

Glass brick is often used to create visual privacy barriers, such as shown in the illustration above, where it has been used to create gender privacy through a doorless labyrinth that forms a washroom/changeroom entrance that allows light to pass, unrestricted, but distorts visual coherent light to such a degree as to provide reasonable privacy.

[edit] Glass brick for hygiene

In terms of ease of decontamination, glass brick is as good as ceramic tile, so it is ideal for washdown/decon areas, as well as for wet areas such as changerooms, washrooms, and municipal swimming baths.