Light: 75 kg/m2 < p ≤ 125 kg/m2

The building that MAP Architects designed in Borneo dock, Amsterdam, resolves the envelopes in a very appropriate way at all scales.

In the design process of a ventilated façade, architects often focus on selecting the material, color, format, and layout of the cladding panels. Meanwhile, the substructure that makes system possible,  responsible for transmitting loads to the main structure, is relegated to the background, hidden within the air cavity.

This case would be quite an ordinary rain screen façade with a lightweight steel frame main wall and a cladding, if it were not for the reflective membrane. This layer achieves air-tightness all around the building and moisture protection of the main wall, allowing the exterior board not to be a cement board, as is the standardised Knauf system.

The precast concrete pieces, whether structural or not, shape the building's identity—from the large lattice panels framing the chamfer to the simple exterior line of concrete pillars.

This concrete skeleton defines bioclimatic spaces, making this seemingly rigid architecture feel comfortable and "soft".

Regarding the facade solution, the most relevant are the balconies acting as bioclimatic buffers.

Mineral wool over wood and rendered finishing are becoming increasingly common. Do you think this will soon be a standard construction method in Barcelona?

Pay attention to how this elegant wooden curtain wall resolves the front of the slab, ensuring the appropriate fire sectorisation and minimizing the need of transoms. A simple wooden rib closes from the inside the gap between the pavement and the glass.

We love those examples that shake the taxonomical tool that organizes this website. In this occasion, the case does not question the order at the taxonomy but thins the rotundity of the lines between areas.

B720 architects propose a stick wooden curtain wall where mullions and transoms reach the building site already assembled in a big format component. We cannot say it is a unitized system, it is just a frame composed by complex profiles.
 

Interesting and well resolved wooden stick curtain wall, mostly for the students of architecture consulting this website. In this curtain wall façade “everything happens”: we have a shading device anchored to the mullions; an exterior catwalk; a corner opening without mullion; a big offset from the concrete slab to the curtain wall starting; a watertight continuity situation with a brick parapet. Understand it all, you will learn a lot!!

A highly prefabricated system reproducing the image of a traditional brick work. (Like in case Light prefabricated “brick” work).

The challenge is erecting a new building in an old neighbourhood being respectful with the image and material character of the surrounding buildings.

The brick work wall builds a massive plinth that sits the building in the place.

From this plinth emerge a series of isolated volumes defined by a clearly different material character.

The construction with large-format prefabricated panels contrasts with the craftsmanship that accompanies the execution of the brick work wall.

Technique, system and image. Example of great coherence.

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