In 2023 a major refurbishment of the IKEA store in Valladolid (Spain) was executed, resulting in the obsolescence of an all-glass interior façade. Rather than disposing of all the elements in this façade, a third of its glass panels and fixing elements were reused in a new one designed as a relocation of the original. Therefore, an improvement on the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of the new façade was achieved. The original interior façade, designed and built by Arup & Bellapart in 2011, was 40m long and 10.6m tall consisting in 40 laminated glass panels (10.10 1.52SG) about 4000x2600mm supported by 9 glass fins (10.10.10.10 1.52 SG) 550mm wide. During its service time, four panels were already retired from it in order to have an entrance on its middle point. The reduced dimensions of the new façade (20m long) as well as the presence of an entrance limited the reused glass panels to 16 (44% of the original) while the glass fins could not be reused due to their state of conservation, being the salvaged glass a third of the original one. Nonetheless, the amount of reused glass in the new façade amounts to 84%. In the paper, an assessment on the GWP of the production and construction of the new façade (modules A1 to A5 according to EN 15978) is provided, resulting into a 53% reduction on the GWP due to the reuse. This assessment is made based on Bellapart’s records (who was in charge of the salvaging of the original panels and the building of the new façade), by means of using the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) of each of the used products and, when unavailable, the assumed GWP based on suitable available EPD’s and industry averages.
Carles-Hug Bitlloch
IKEA Valladolid: Reusing an interior all-glass façade
Company: Bellapart, Spain
About the speaker:
Carles-Hug Bitlloch Martínez is the Structural Engineering Director at Bellapart. He has worked in several cutting-edge projects such as the Skylight of the Hotel Ritz (Madrid) or the Flagship Store on 54 Av. Montaigne (Paris), as well as the Woolbeding Glasshouse (England). Working in Bellapart since 2018, he studied Architecture and Structural Engineering at UPC (Barcelona) and has previous experience in structural engineering in Spain and Switzerland.