Glazing Creatively at the Sekurit Imagine Lab

Sekurit’s Imagine Lab is a place where engineers and designers can explore new automotive possibilities for glazing and glass. (Sekurit)

June 8, 2026

Sebastian Blanco

Engineers and designers might approach a new vehicle program from different angles.

At Saint-Gobain Sekurit’s new Imagine Lab though, the two disciplines work together from a fresh sheet when it comes to new vehicle glass and glazing options. Sekurit built the Imagine Lab co-development space with the Paris-based Meaningful design studio.

The Lab is a modular space that Sekurit can set up at an OEM’s design center, with stations set up to showcase Sekurit’s new glass and glazing technologies. But, more than that, it’s intended to be a space for free thinking, at least at first. Meaningful founder Marine Rouit‑Leduc told SAE Media that all too often, when presented with a somewhat out-there glass idea, engineers believed that it wasn’t feasible. “But they don't know all the opportunities that glass can offer,” she said. “We, with our R&D expertise, sometimes [agree] and say no, because we are an engineering company, but sometimes we [know we] can explore with them and push, a little bit, the boundaries.”

When Sekurit welcomes designers and engineers from an OEM or a supplier to the Imagine Lab, the sessions regularly start with open design time. When fleshing out the details of how a new headlight or interior glass surface might work, Sekurit offers new tech like the Amplisky Lumin light in glass with integrated technology or the Amplisky Perla and Ombra switchable glass that has both opaque and transparent modes.

“The automotive industry is in a profound transformation, and in fact in glass it is the same,” Meriem Dussart, international marketing director at Saint-Gobain Sekurit, told SAE Media. “With the arrival of the electric vehicle, we have more and more glass inside the car. And glass is no longer passive. It's really more active, and it's also becoming an important element in the interior.”

Dussart, continued, “I think with autonomous cars [the possibility of what you can do with glass] will grow even more because you can interact with the glass when you’re not driving, and you can use this big surface really differently. That’s why we take this opportunity to launch the Imagine Lab, because the designers need to think upstream, with new use cases for the car.”

Sekurit is obviously targeting higher-end models with its full slate of products but has come around to thinking of some of its new glass and glazing technologies as a way for even middle-market vehicles to differentiate themselves.

“Sometimes you think about big things: lighting glass, full canopy, but sometimes it can also be subtle and just one pictogram on the sidelines, or something discrete,” Dussart said. “The beauty of the glass, is that, in fact, it is transparent, and it will reveal the information that you want when you need. And it's not necessarily a big thing; it can also be a small thing. So that's why we are targeting both segments. We think there's a huge opportunity.”

Two new technologies at the Image Lab include Amplisky Lumin light in glass and Amplisky Perla and Ombra switchable glass with opaque and transparent modes. (Sekurit)

“That's something we thought at the beginning, like you, that it would address more premium brands,” Rouit‑Leduc said. “But we had a lot of discussions internally with the innovation director, and we really had to change our mind, I mean, our European mind on that idea. Because when we see the Chinese products, they do that at that cost. I think the goal from Sekurit would be to be able to address some of this technology, not at a higher cost, but bring more value at the same cost, at least. It’s true that within some OEMs, marketers and designers think like we did at the beginning, that it's for the high-end, but I'm not sure it's true, actually. But the whole market needs to change their mind on that, not only us.”

Dussart pointed to two new Renault models, the Scenic E-Tech and the Rafale, and their use of Amplisky Perla and Ombra glass to offer a 1500-euro ($1,745 US) option for a solar roof where each occupant can select the transparency of their overhead section. Amplisky uses a 48-volt polymer-dispersed liquid-crystal technology that can be applied on part or all of a glass surface. Amplisky is available in two colors (when opaque): whitish or grayish, but the gray option has a haze of 7% when “clear.” Also on display within the Lab are technologies that have been deployed on, yes, some high-end products on the market alongside others that are in a less advanced level of development, which Sekurit shows as potential inspiration.

“Then, if the designer or the engineering team at the OEM say, "Oh, we can imagine doing something with this technology, because it has this transparency and the ability to display information, then we can start a development project,” Dussart said. “It’s also a way to collaborate and to address innovation issues that Tier 1s or Tier 2s may have, to anticipate the needs of the OEM.”

Dussart said the Imagine Lab offers a change of positioning for Sekurit’s R&D team, which is now telling OEMs and suppliers to work together with the company on innovative challenges.

“We will address it, and we will not consider first what is feasible,” Dussart said. “We will consider your dream, what you want to do with glass, and then we will make it reality.”