Can we talk about how much glass a skyscraper actually uses?

I was reading an article about a new building going up in Chicago and it said the curtain wall will use over 350,000 square feet of glass. That number just blew my mind, I had no idea a single project could use that much material. It made me think about the sheer scale of the panels and the logistics of getting them all up there without a single break. I've only ever done residential and small commercial jobs, so the planning for something that big is hard to picture. Has anyone here ever been part of a skyscraper glazing crew? What's the biggest single pane you've ever had to install?

2 comments

2 Comments

brookef734d ago

My biggest glass project was a sliding door. The logistics for that much material are wild. I'd be the one dropping a panel from the 50th floor.

hill.sarah4d ago

Wow, that number is crazy to picture. It's like that feeling when you see a huge cruise ship and just can't figure out how it floats. We get used to normal sizes, so the real scale of these projects feels impossible. I get the same shock seeing a whole field of solar panels from the highway, just acres of them. Makes you realize how much stuff goes into the world we barely notice.