The façade or the principal front of a building tells us that the structure has something unique to offer. It brings the building to life and provides the opportunity to create a character and personality to a building and embodied the building’s character.
Over the years, engineers and architects have created and designed different types of facades with various materials. Here are some of the examples of revolutionary building facades across the globe:
Breathing Facades: a reformulated mimic of Nature
Nature is one of the beautiful blessings of God that have been an inspiring concept to tackle the world’s biggest challenges. Mimicking nature is not a new approach, but it has been recently reformulated under the scientific term biomimicry. The scientific term biomimicry aims to innovate non-biological systems inspired by nature. The various methods of thermal adaptation to the hot climate found in nature provide a comprehensive source of inspiration to develop new concepts for achieving thermal comfort.
Biomimicry introduces “breathing skin” as a bio-inspired idea, located in the skin of living organisms. So based on this concept, the buildings with breathing facade design, provide a vibrant connection between the exterior environment and interior spaces, and they breathe through thousands of pores. Hence, breathing facade is a kind that has been inspired by skin texture; it could significantly help buildings to breathe and have better air conditions. There are different kinds of breathing facades, namely Metal mesh facade, Operable skin façade, and Light Responsive façade.
Parametric facade: a mathematical function
The parametric architecture is like a mathematical function with a set of data as input that together will determine output. There’s an algorithm in this function that creates the output. Similarly, a parametric facade is a facade design created using the specific algorithm. Architects take computers to try all solutions for these algorithms and find the best one. Parametric texture and undulated surfaces are applied in parametric designs. These facade designs could be inspired by nature as well. When we look deeper, we realize that breathing facade is also a kind of parametric facades.
The building skin is an essential parameter for building performance. Also, it is a medium through which intelligence can be imparted to a building system to respond to an environmental stimulus. So the critical characteristic of an effective smart building facade is its ability to save energy through its texture that parametric facade does to the core.
Read also: Green Facades – The Trending Eco-friendly Facades for Buildings
Green facade: bringing nature to your life
Green building facade design and vertical garden design are slowly making their way up the ladder, becoming more common by the day. It is the best positive event happening in today’s urban life. To achieve that architects should come up with new ideas and concepts in green architecture and facade design.
Growing climbers up across the building facade, and grown-up plants in garden beds at its base, at different levels across the building, could help to make a fantastic green building design.
The suitability of plants on a facade of a particular region strongly depends on the climate of the site and the method of climbing plant attachment. Selecting a proper and safe support system plays an essential role in green facade design. It can be a cable or a trellis. These supports may be attached to the building or mounted independently. The distance between the structural support and wall impacts climate control and plant performance.
Organic facade: free-forms with rules
These facades are not about sustainable facades or green architecture but are the concepts especially suitable for sustainable architecture.
There are some misconceptions around organic architecture, like having tree forms or bringing nature into your buildings and more.
In Organic facades, you can choose free forms, but the forms should follow specific architectural rules, such as harmony and balance. Natural patterns are the best source of architectural concepts in organic design. Though they may seem free-form, they follow strict and efficient rules helping them respond well to their environment’s strains. Plastics, fibre-reinforced composite, and many other materials enable architects and artists to design and construct curve works and free-form shapes and other organic structures.
Read also: Aludecor Systems – The Pioneer of Heat Insulation and Green Building Practices
Ventilated façade: a contemporary construction solution
The ventilated façade is a construction solution that uses a double enclosure distanced from each other by a support structure to generate an air chamber for ventilation. This operation creates a chimney effect that activates air currents by convection, improving the acoustic and thermal insulation of the building, and increasing its energy efficiency.
Ventilated Façade system also known as double-skin façades or rain-screens, can also assist in protecting buildings against the combined action of wind and rain by counterbalancing the effects of water beating on walls and keeping the building dry.
The system guarantees outstanding performance in terms of temperature and humidity, without the need to interfere with the internal layout of the building or to alter its interior finishes. The reasons for its rising popularity include the considerable energy savings that it offers combined with its ability to improve living comfort.
Rain Screens are the ideal choice when it comes to protecting buildings from weathering and facilitating ecologically advanced solutions like thermal insulation, soundproofing, efficient fire protection while also having an extended shelf life and cost-efficiency. At Aludecor, we understand the art of Rainscreen installation. Our team of Fabrication experts thus have pioneered the Male Female Rainscreen Systems that not only allows smooth installation but also guarantees energy efficiency at its best.
