STARPHIRE Glass Facade Brings Light, Color to Extraordinary New Beverly Hills Landmark

Even 25 years after the debut of STARPHIRE ULTRA-CLEAR glass, architects and designers continue to find new and creative ways to exploit its clarity and ability to faithfully reproduce color. Nowhere is that more evident than on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California, where architect Hagy Belzberg and glass fabricator Pulp Studio used STARPHIRE glass to transform a bland three-story office building into a stunning showcase for Gores Group, a multibillion-dollar global private equity firm.

The building’s signature two-layer façade combines carved limestone, custom-printed interlayers and slumped glass panels bent from Starphire glass to create a shimmering, multitextured surface that interacts during the day with sunlight and at night with brightly speckled LED lights, turning the showcase structure into an ever-changing spectacle of color and light.

Made from a proprietary low-iron formulation introduced by PPG in 1990, Starphire Ultra-Clear glass remains the clearest, most transparent commercial float glass available, with visible light transmittance of 91 percent in a standard ¼-inch monolithic lite.

Bernard Lax, chief executive officer of Pulp Studio, which specializes in architectural decorative glasses such as those featured on the Gores Group headquarters, said his firm uses Starphire glass for about 70 percent of its production. “We always specify Starphire glass for projects where aesthetic is the driving force to maintain color neutrality,” he explained.