Project Summary

This project features two custom kiln-formed glass surfaces fabricated and installed by Downing Designs, Tampa, FL for a private luxury condominium on the ninth floor of Greenbridge Condominiums, at the corner of West Rosemary and North Graham streets in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

The upper surface is a custom illuminated kiln-formed glass high bar top — 126 inches long by 20 inches wide by 1.5 inches thick — with a hand-worked organic texture and Ambiance Machine™ RGB LED illumination. It floats proud above a white glass island countertop measuring 130 inches long by 40 inches wide, fabricated from porcelain-enameled kiln-formed glass in a luminous matte white finish. The two surfaces work together as a single composition: the white glass grounds the island in clean, quiet light; the illuminated bar top above it introduces depth, color, and atmosphere on demand.

The installation was featured by name in Chapel Hill Magazine (November 2020, photography by Cornell Watson), where the piece was described as "an illuminated glass bar top, handmade by Tampa-based Jeff Downing." It was the first of two Downing Designs commissions by the same client — the second followed at their Lake Norman lakefront residence in Cornelius, NC.

Project Specifications

Fabrication & Installation Detail — Chapel Hill, NC

What makes a floating glass high bar top different from a standard glass countertop?

A glass high bar top sits proud of the countertop surface below it — elevated, cantilevered, with its illuminated edge fully exposed to the room. At 126 inches long and 1.5 inches thick, the Chapel Hill bar top is not resting on the island; it is presented above it. The white glass countertop below anchors the island. The bar top above it is the event.

This two-surface composition is a signature Downing Designs approach. The white glass island provides a clean, quiet worksurface in daylight. After dark, the Ambiance Machine™ activates the bar top above it — and the kitchen becomes something else entirely.

How does the Ambiance Machine™ perform on the ninth floor of a luxury high-rise?

Floor-to-ceiling glass on three sides. The Chapel Hill skyline and tree canopy of Carrboro below. The Ambiance Machine™ RGB LED system operating at the interior edge of a 1.5-inch glass bar top, glowing outward across 126 inches of hand-textured kiln-formed surface.

This is the environment the Ambiance Machine™ was designed for. At full intensity, the glow competes with nothing — the room is dark, the city is below, the bar top is the only light source that matters. Dialed back to 20%, it becomes ambient, secondary, a presence rather than a statement. The system operates across 8 million color combinations at any intensity from 0 to 100%, with programmable scenes. It requires no manual attention after setup.

What is kiln-formed glass and how does texture become permanent in the surface?

Kiln-forming is a process in which glass is fired at high temperature over a textured bed — hand-worked to the specific pattern agreed upon by client and craftsman. The heat softens the glass and allows it to conform precisely to the texture beneath it. The result is a surface that is permanently part of the glass, not applied to it.

For the Chapel Hill bar top, the texture lives on the underside of the glass. The top surface stays smooth and cleanable while the visual depth lives below — amplified, after dark, by the LED light source firing through it from the interior edge. In daylight the texture reads as shadow and dimension. At 9:30pm with the Ambiance Machine™ dialed to blue, it becomes the medium through which the light moves.

Why did this client commission a second Downing Designs installation?

Kim Toothman, in her own email commissioning the Lake Norman project:

"I absolutely love the white glass countertop in our Chapel Hill condominium."

The Lake Norman commission followed directly from that experience — white glass island countertops throughout the kitchen of their lakefront Cornelius residence, personally templated by Jeff Downing on-site, fabricated in Tampa, and installed with a crew within 42 days of templating.

See the Lake Norman white glass countertop project →

What is the installation process for a glass surface on the ninth floor of a high-rise?

Every Downing Designs installation begins with personal on-site templating by Jeff Downing — not a subcontractor, not a template service, but the fabricator who will build the piece. For the Chapel Hill project, that meant traveling from Tampa to Chapel Hill, confirming every dimension in the actual space, and returning with finished surfaces built to those exact measurements.

High-rise installations require coordination that ground-floor projects do not — elevator logistics, floor protection, precise sequencing. The finished surfaces arrived from Tampa ready to place. No field modification. No adjustment cuts. That outcome is only possible when the same person who templates the space builds the piece.

What are the maintenance requirements for a kiln-formed glass bar top and white glass countertop?

Both surfaces require no special treatment. The bar top surface is smooth polished glass — cleaning requires only a damp cloth or standard glass cleaner. The white glass island countertop is non-porous, permanently sealed by the firing process, and requires no sealing, no waxing, and no periodic maintenance of any kind.

Low-iron glass does not react with alcohol, citrus, or cleaning products the way stone and concrete surfaces can. The Ambiance Machine™ LED system is solid-state and maintenance-free under normal residential use. Kim Toothman has lived with both surfaces — and commissioned a second installation.

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