Uploaded on 2017-03-29 by Laura Gosmino

Glass, and more specifically window wall, is now the dominating material used for residential towers in the city. A simple walk through the downtown core will make this evident even to the eyes of the least architecturally trained. When one thinks of Canada one may think of immense forested areas, and therefore could assume the abundance of wood as a local resource. It isn't surprising then that the majority of this window wall systems are imported from USA and, more commonly, from China. Many other building components for these high rise residential buildings are also imported from China because of their low prices. The major flow of this material into the city at this moment brings a question: when the gas that is captured between the window panes to increase the thermal insulating capacity of these windows will have escaped, in a few decades, what will happen to all these windows? Will they remain as a stock in the city and be repaired? Or will they be replaced causing a second big flow of this worn-out product? Perhaps resent to their original country of origin so they could be recycled and reused?