Brick wall

Unlike stone, pressed ceramic tiles or any kind of artificial panels of board type, extruded terracotta elements can easily be three-dimensional, due to the manufacturing process. Unfortunately architects do not always take advantage of this possibility, even though terracotta is a common material in façade claddings.  Here is a good example of its 3D possibilities!

And observe these difficult corners where three-dimensional elements can show their hollowness! A good challenge!

Sober architecture but a confusing solution.

Which is the main façade layer in this concrete façade? The 8 cm think concrete panel or the brick wall? 

A group of residential buildings in Torrelago district, Laguna de Duero (Valladolid), has been refurbished in the context of the European Programme CITyFIED: Replicable and Innovative Future Efficient Districts and Cities. The renovation addresses both the image of the buildings and energy factors. 

The Hotel Constanza is part of the Illa Diagonal complex. Like the main building, the facade is covered with a travertine rain screen. The narrowness of the drainage cavity is striking, but is interrupted by the lack of cleanliness of the insulation surrounding the fixings.

ETICS solutions, which are now so common due to the thermal insulation continuity they allow, were already used twenty-five years ago in designs such as the MACBA building. At that time, achieving continuous rendering without joints was not that simple, as the rendering materials were not as good as the ones we use today.

Lightweight solutions for the rainscreen outer layer were barely known. Probably because the architects did not trust this solution, the inner wall was completely covered with a watertight membrane.

This could not be more adequate.

It is wise in the decision of being discreet, and acute in the selection of all systems and materials. The expertise of the architects as constructors is shown in the accurate design of all the points of relation between the systems and elements.

In the façade solution of this building we want to draw attention to two factors:

The building for a student’s residence at the South Diagonal Universities Campus uses two different façade systems: the first, ETICS, solves water tightness thanks to the impermeability of the rendering; the second, rain screen, uses an open-joint outer sheet and a drainage cavity for this same purpose.

This building, and its façade, could easily go unnoticed. It is appropriate, but not boastful.

However, we wanted to draw attention to a very specific, educational aspect. Even though the two façade systems that are used are formed by two sheets with a cavity in the middle, their behaviour is very different. 
The outer layer made of flat plates with open vertical joints allows air and water to enter and exit the cavity through the joints. This is a ventilated and drained façade. 

This is an excellent proposal for solving façade composition with a rectangular format checkerboard pattern (the blind and hollowed areas only touch at the apex), avoiding the presence of the slab.

Those who have faced this situation will know how difficult it is to unite at a vertex two openings on different floors, separated by a slab, without showing the thickness of this structural element.