When planners were designing the Konya Tropical Butterfly Garden in Konya, Turkey, they recognised it was vital to secure the best, most reliable means of maintaining stable heat and humidity in the museum to protect the beautiful, delicate – and extremely climate sensitive – butterfly inhabitants.
They turned to Guardian Industries’ Glass Group in Europe, a leading manufacturer of high-quality commercial, residential, interior and automotive glass products, to provide the nearly 1,500 pieces of different-sized glass needed during construction.
Specifically, they selected Guardian SunGuard® SNX 60/28, which lets 60% of sunlight in but keeps out 72% of the sun’s heat – allowing the temperature inside the building to be precisely regulated. The SunGuard eXtra selective (SNX) range is the highest performing solar protective glass Guardian has to offer. This glass also offers excellent aesthetics, due to its neutral transparent colour and its low reflection.
Ensuring a constant tropical climate of 26°C and 80% humidity inside the glass-covered building was a particular challenge in Konya, which has a continental climate with large temperature swings between the winter and summer months. The construction area covers 380,000 square meters.
The museum, which opened in July 2015, features Europe’s biggest butterfly flight zone of 1,600 square meters. Some 6,000 butterflies of 15 species and 20,000 tropical plants of 98 species live in the museum.
SunGuard glass not only helps to protect this rare and valuable plant and animal life, but it also makes for a more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly building. The Konya museum project won a LEED Silver certificate, making it the first museum in Turkey to be so recognised. (LEED is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council).
SunGuard products can help buildings to earn the LEED points needed to earn the much-coveted LEED certification.
The Konya Selçuklu Muncipality worked with the international architectural and planning firm Arup on this project and hired the Akçim-Evçağ business partnership to handle the actual construction.