Seele GmbH & Co.KG, a German glass company, recently won the “Innovation Award” at Glasstec, an international trade fair, for its development of the world's largest self-supporting staircase, manufactured with DuPont™ SentryGlas® Plus.
DuPont™ SentryGlas® Plus high-strength laminated glass interlayers were used both for the manufacture of the glass steps and sidewalls and for the laminated-on stainless steel mountings. Seele developed the award-winning all-glass staircase in collaboration with the Institute of Building Design and the Institute of Supporting Structures and Structural Design of the University of Stuttgart.
Judges were impressed with the first-time use of a non-positive-fit connection between the steps and the sidewalls, thus waiving the need for the boreholes and bolts normally used for conventional positive-fit, bolt-fixed connections.