Main Office
Dubai — Showroom
The Pinnacle Building, Sheikh Zayed Road, Office 607
Mon–Fri: 9:00 – 18:00
Semi-structural glazing
Semi-structural glazing holds every pane two ways at once. On one axis the glass is caught under a slim mechanical cap screwed back through the frame; on the other it is bonded with structural silicone and nothing crosses the face at all. So the elevation keeps one set of lines and loses the other — most often the horizontals stay and the verticals disappear — and the building reads as banded glass rather than as a grid. Appearance is only half the reason it gets specified. The capped edges keep a retention that can be undone with tools, and that is what decides how a single unit comes out of a finished building years later.
- capped one axis retention
- bonded the other the joint
- undone with tools taking a pane out
How the two pairs of edges differ
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Pressure plate and cap
Capped edges
Metal you can unscrew again
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Structural silicone
Open edges
The bond is the retention there
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On setting blocks
Dead load
Carried at the capped edge
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Horizontal or vertical
Which axis shows
A choice with consequences either way
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Gunned on site
Open joint
Weather seal, cut and remade later
Let's calculate
the cost of glazing
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We produce
Curtain walls, structural and semi-structural glazing, ventilated and cassette facades. The system carries its own weight and the wind load of a tall building, and the glass line stays unbroken across the elevation.
Canopies, balustrades, railings and pool fencing, where glass is carried by an aluminium or steel frame. The load goes through the metal, the glass stays transparent.
Frameless glazing, spider systems, skylights and roof lanterns — everything built so the frame disappears and only the glass is read.
Office and glass partitions, sliding and smart-glass systems. They divide a floor without walls: light passes through, noise does not.
Glazed structures with a fire-resistance rating for escape routes and openings between fire compartments.
Priced per project
Glazed facade
Curtain wall
Glass floors
Stair railings
Glass fences
Glass canopies
Skylights
Glass partitions
Fire-resistant glazing
How a semi-structural elevation is built
- Elevation walked and the capped axis agreed Engineer on site within 48 hours
- Pane sizes taken from the built structure Not from the architect's grid alone
- Carriers bonded and cured in our Dubai workshop Moved only once the bond has cured
- Panes hung and the cap line held straight A wandering cap is read from the pavement
- Open joints gunned and tooled after alignment The weather seal goes on last
- Removal sequence written into the record drawing Which cap comes off, and from which side
Partitions
Office partitions made of aluminium profiles are a simple, quick, and cost-effective way to organise efficient zoning within a large space, while maintaining interior unity.
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Aluminium office partitions with glass
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Full-glass office partitions
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Transformable partitions for the office
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Accordion partitions for the office
Aluminium windows of any configuration
Made to size in our own factory in Dubai — in 3–5 weeks.
We will find convenient opening options:
The honest downside
Is semi-structural glazing worth the extra work?
Every bonded edge is workshop work. The carriers are primed, bonded and cured before they can travel, which adds time and cost against a fully capped system, and the open joints on site are a weather seal that has to be inspected and remade over the life of the building.
Replacing a unit is easier than on a fully bonded facade, but it is still a job for an access platform, the original fabrication drawing and a skilled hand with a sealant gun — not a pane that simply unclips.
On a low-rise building, a re-clad or any elevation where a visible grid is acceptable, a conventional capped curtain wall is simpler to build and to maintain. Semi-structural glazing is worth it where the banded look matters and the owner wants panes that can still be released with tools.
Consider instead
Curtain wall
Frequently asked questions
Two reasons, and neither of them is timidity. The first is what it costs to make: bonding is the slow, controlled, indoor part of the work, and halving the bonded length halves the preparation, the priming and the time a unit spends on a bench before it may be moved. The second is what it costs to own. A capped edge is a hold you can release with a screwdriver on an access platform; a fully bonded pane is a commitment made once, in a workshop, and undone the same way. Where the client is a developer who will hand the building to somebody else to maintain, that difference tends to decide it.
It is an appearance decision with a physical consequence attached, so it is worth taking seriously. Horizontal caps mark the floor lines and let the glass run uninterrupted from side to side, which is what most people mean when they ask for banded glazing. They are also small ledges: dust settles on them between rains and the first proper shower washes it down the pane beneath in streaks that show for weeks. Vertical caps drain themselves, keep the elevation looking taller and leave nothing for sand to sit on, but the horizontal joints then have to work harder. We draw both on the actual elevation before anyone commits.
The cover and its pressure plate come off the capped edges, the weather joint on the bonded edges is cut back, and the pane is drawn out along the axis that was capped. On a fully bonded facade the pane and the frame it is married to come away as one piece and go back to a workshop; here the operation is smaller and can usually be done from outside. It still needs three things ready: the original fabrication drawing, an agreed access route, and a new joint gunned and tooled to match everything around it. That is why the fabrication drawing is kept with the job record.
Both depend on the same first line: a designed silicone joint, gunned onto clean dry glass and tooled properly rather than smeared. The difference is what sits behind it. A capped edge has a drained chamber under the cover, so water that gets past the outer line has somewhere to go and a way out; a bonded edge has only the bond. That is the strongest argument for putting the caps on the horizontals, where water actually runs, and it is why we ask how the elevation will be cleaned before choosing which way the metal shows.
Related pages
Nearby pages and the rest of the catalogue.
- All-glass corners
- Aluminium railings
- Balcony glazing
- Balcony glazing upgrade
- Cassette facades
- Conservatories
- Curtain wall
- Floor-to-ceiling glazing
- Frameless balcony glazing
- Frameless glazing
- Garden rooms
- Glass balustrades
Sections
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Samples to see in person
Profiles, glass units and hardware to see and touch before you choose.
Dubai — Showroom
The Pinnacle Building, Sheikh Zayed Road, Office 607
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