The complexity of such an enormous building would permit referring to different facades. In this occasion we just want to share with you some images of the erection of the facades solved with unitized panels. A single skin in one case and a double one in the other.
If the tendency is to fill our architecture with all type of gadgets so as to self-produce the energy the users need for their wellbeing, we need to accept that either the building on its global formalisation, or some of the systems being used for its construction, need to integrate those productive gadgets.
Energetic productivity is a design requirement.
Have a look to this façade solution, to the characteristics of the different layers overlapped, and then have a look to the Torre Agbar façade solution.
They look quite similar: a wall, in one case made of small elements while in the other made of concrete poured on site, a ribbed metal sheet, glass slats. In both cases the thermal insulation is in the inside.
Interesting sub-frame solving the window opening in all the façade depth. It includes the banister and a gap specially designed to hide the sun protection ¡inside the cavity of the rain screen façade!
Unitized panels: moving from high-technological glass façade systems to a common façade solution with any distribution of openings, and the possibility of different finishing materials.
Here is a really interesting concrete solution.
As HEARING indicates on their own website "they used triangular fillets as profiled shuttering and were thus able to cause the grain to protrude evenly from the surface after surface treatment, washing in this case, thus providing the desired structure."
Applying colour only to a superficial layer of concrete stone aggregate allows the opening to be highlighted with this separate, nearly white enclosing element.
Once again, this case study illustrates how difficult it is to name and classify the wide range of contemporary façade solutions.
Very narrow, large cladding pieces are attached longitudinally. The high number of horizontal profiles that are needed is increased by the fact that two adjacent plates do not always share fixing profiles, as in the lattice area. Therefore, the need for profiles is practically doubled in these parts of the façade.
A very suitable but expensive solution.
Wood has broken into the local construction sector to stay. Proof of this is that architects no longer boast of using it, to show that they undertake responsible, sustainable work. Instead, they use it because it is the most appropriate material to meet certain design requirements.
What an amazing solution! Covering the façade with an EPDM membrane like a padded jacket or a “boatiné coat”. It’s so obvious, but not common! I only remember one similar solution on the back façade of the Frei Photographic Studio in Weil am Rhein, by Herzog & de Meuron. They also used a waterproof membrane, on that occasion made of asphalt, for the cladding.