Clear and durable plastic light transmissive film for building applications
In a world where glass still reins, despite being heavy, a poor insulator, delicate and not transmissive of the full light spectrum (read Health and Light by John N Ott), tefzel (ETFE: ethlene tetrafluorethlene) interests me.
I found out about tefzel in Gorman's Buckminster Fuller: Designing for Mobility and was they surprised to find out that it's in widespread use: Wikipedia's notable buildings using tefzel.
My girlfriend and I had previously discussed replacing non-UV transmissive laserlight with UVT (UV transmissive) acrylic in a glasshouse like application. In New Zealand, we found this hard to source, with some calls finally leading us to a supplier on the South Island that could sell us sheets, not of the most light transmissive product (the one they use in properly designed zoo enclosures apparently...), but of the 'mostly transmissive' product one down from that. I've lost the details, otherwise I'd put them up here for the next person that comes searching...
That divergence aside...tefzel, look at how it's being used:
