Not every opening
is a rectangle.
Two ways a Vistaza elevation leaves the rectangle behind: an arched head bent from the frame profile itself, and a curved corner built from flat windows on round posts.
The profile is bent to the radius.
The arched head is the same frame profile as the rest of the window, bent to the radius the elevation calls for. It is not a separate arched box set on top of a square window. A straight transom runs across at the spring line, and the arched compartment above it is a fixed light.
The window or terrace door that opens sits below the transom, in the rectangular part of the frame, and works exactly like any other Vistaza in-swing casement or terrace door.
Bending is a controlled, checked operation. The chambers in the profile stay open and the faces stay square through the curve, and each bent piece is checked against a square before it is used. Every new shape is proved against the tooling before it is released, so we confirm the radius for the actual elevation rather than quote a blanket limit.
The glass is flat. The arched light is an insulating unit cut to the shape of the opening from a CAD file of the actual arc, so the sight line follows the curve exactly.
On one Brooklyn mid-rise the round-tops were segmental, 60 in and 72 in wide with a 17 in rise — a 35 in radius on the narrower unit and a 46-3/4 in radius on the wider one, the rise held constant so the heads line up across the elevation.
Bushwick 3, Brooklyn — segmental arched heads over in-swing casements, Vi6 in Platinum.
16th Street, Brooklyn — radius heads in a flush brick bay, Vi5 in Black.
The second way bends nothing at all.
A curved corner is built from flat Vi6 windows joined on custom round posts. Each post carries a solid steel tube inside it, and the posts are made to the opening rather than to a catalog angle — so the run of windows follows the curve of the building while every unit in it stays flat, and every one of them is an ordinary Vistaza window.
Because the post adapts to the rough opening, the curve on the drawing and the curve that gets built are the same curve. It is how a full round opening is closed without a single piece of bent glass.
The curve is approved before anything is cut.
A round-top is drawn as a true arc in the product elevation and dimensioned by its rise, with the frame sections beside it. The architect approves the actual curve on paper, and the shaped glass is driven off the same geometry.
Send the elevation, not a description.
A shape is engineered project by project, so the elevation is what we price and what we prove the tooling against. Send it early — it is the one part of a window schedule that cannot be answered from a standard type list.
A curve on your elevation?
Send the elevation with the plans. We confirm the geometry before anything is priced.