When you have your own business, your boss is the most demanding one: The Market. Only if you offer competitive and innovative products, the market will award you. This is the case of Buryat ( htt://www.buryat.es ), a catalan company located in Barcelona, which is specialized in rockwool technical solutions for fire insulation integrated in curtain wall systems. They invest efforts to improve their products according to the observation market needs. They are putting some shine on two issues: minimize the number of pieces and reduce the assembly time.

All of their systems are tested in laboratory according to the European Standards.

The new version of Buryat EI120, as solution for 1 meter fringe between slab concrete and curtain wall, is formed by four elements:
? High density rockwool insulation panel of 50 mm thickness.
? Espiga ACR: anchorage between panels.
? Square profile: anchorage for horizontal panel on the lower slab side.
? Angled: anchorage for vertical panel internal aluminium frame.

The system is formed by a rockwool vertical panel inside the aluminium frame, afterwards two horizontal panel situated one on the top and one on the lower side slab. The lower panel is anchoraged to the slab through the square profile. The top panel is fixed between the concrete slab and vertical panel.
The rockwool panels are anchoraged to the concrete slab, in order to achieve the independence between fire insulation system and curtain wall.

Finally, in order to protect the vertical aluminium profiles of the lower part, a new rockwool panel is assemblied to the vertical one through the Espiga anchorage. In the upper part, the same rockwool panel is assemblied and anchoraged to the vertical panel through Espiga anchorage.
The free spaces between the rockwool panels and the slab concrete must be filled with intumescent sealants.

The isolant fire integrated in a curtain wall have been tested in laboratory and the result is 120 minuts of stability and integrity.

Source: renatocilento.blogspot.com

Repost from the GKD pressroom

Wax Museum San Francisco California
MBH Architectural (www.mbharch.com)
Allied Mechanical (www.alliedmech.com)
VMZ Standing seam panel
QUARTZ-ZINC

The aim of this post is to present one of the celebrities in the engineering and facade world. It is a introduction to those who are unaware of Peter Rice’s achievements.

This great engineer contributed in facades and structures with such a important innovations. He cooperated to design buildings, nowadays considered icons of structures and façades.

Currenlty the most of façades designed and built, in some way contain his essence.

He set up as Structural Engineer in Ove Arup  firm from 1956 to 1977, afterwards he founded his own engineering firm, partnering with Martin Francis and Ian Ritchie.

The following points enhance some of the most important ideas of his philosophy and way of thinking:

-He believed the best buildings are the result of a symbiotic relationship between the architect and the engineer, where the engineer is the objective inventor and the architect the creative input.
-He was convinced that there was nothing mysterious about the process of innovation. He was never satisfied with mundane solutions. He took risks during the early stages of the design process.
– He combined advanced structural analysis techniques with investigations of materials in order to achieve the best structural systems.
– Peter confessed to learn just what he needed to know when he needed it.

According to Rice, the roles of the engineer are:

-To use the engineer’s understanding of materials and structure to make real the architectural designs.
-To innovate and to support the creativity of architects.

Among the most renowned construction he was involved in, we can mention the following:

-Sydney Opera House (1973, Jorn Utzon)

-Louvre Pyramid (Paris, 1988, Ming Pei)

-Lloyd’s of London (London, 1986, Richard Rogers)

-Stansted London Airport (1991)

-Cité des Sciences at La Villette (Paris,1987,Adrien Fainsilber)

The Centre Pompidou adopted the gerberette solution to achieve the long spans required to support a heavy library that could be moved anywhere in the building. One of Peter’s main contributions was his insistence on the use of cast steel for these pieces. The gerberette acted as a short beam propped on a circular column and tied down at the ened with a circular bar.

The curtain wall in the Cité des Sciences at La Villette has been the origin of the inexhaustible source of inspiration for the point-supported glass facades worlwide. The main innovations are:

-Drilled glass panels with countersunk holes for point fixings supports.
-Spherical bearings keeps all loads in the glass plane and eliminate local bending effects.
-Horizontal cable trusses resists out-of-plane wind forces.

In 1992 he was awarded the Royal Gold Metal for Architecture by the Royal Institute of British Architects for his achievements which let the advancement of architectures.

In 1994, the Harvard University established the Peter Rice Prize in recognition of the ideals and principles that he represented.

After his death, the engineering and architecture have lost one of their innovation engines.

It is advisable to read his two books: Structural Glass (Peter Rice, Hugh Dutton) and
An Engineer Imagines (Peter Rice).

Source: renatocilento.blogspot.com

Repost from the GKD pressroom

Structural glass symbolizes modern architecture and it is considered an added value to achieve all glass facade and non-metal supported transparent structures.

The prospect of shapping glass has contributed to attain a broad variety of aesthetical and structural options through oversized pieces of glass with complex geometries. Its versatility has allowed to achieve a better integration between the aesthetic and functional objectives.

The Casa da Musica in Porto (Rem Koolhas, 2004) is an example how to make the best of curved glass, because glass develops both functions: structure and enclosure. The glass shape increases the set stiffness and it is not necessary any metallic frame. Glass is anchoraged at the top and at the bottom part of its 6 meters length.

In order to achieve double-curved, spherical, curves with small radius and complex geometries, high temperatures are recquired during the manufacture process.

This post is under construction. In fact, it will be under construction during a long time. Creativity  is the limit, because curved glass contributes with the facades of the future.

Source: renatocilento.blogspot.com

Repost from the GKD pressroom

“We know how to make the biggest pieces of glass in the world for architectural use” Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, recently said this sentence during the speech regarding the new Apple Headquarters in Cupertino (California, USA).

Facade units get bigger and bigger every year. Some colleagues engineers have thought that cladding world has gone mad, but it is not true. Innovations are moving ahead. The market demands it.

Architecture is demanding larger pieces, such as Apple Store in Shanghai, where the height of every glass facade is approximately 12 meters.

The main benefits (among others) can be noticed immediately:

-Reduction of glass joints, improving watertightness and increasing light transmission.

-Reduction of supporting claddings.

-Improved load carriage behaviour.

Certainly, Apple has innovated using largest glass panes in their own worldwide stores.

Recently, it has been published that Apple is going to renovate the Cube store on Fifth Avenue in New York, removing the 90 glass panes by using just 15 larger ones.

Another clue concerning this architectural trend was found in the last Glasstech Düsseldorf in October 2010, you could see a huge insulated glass panel of 18 meters x 3,3 meters, manufactured by Henze-Glas from Hörden, Germany.

Source: renatocilento.blogspot.com

repost from www.renatocilento.com

Have you ever thought of using a perforation to create a pattern or image? Check out the following projects that have used perforated Topakustik wall and ceilings panels to create and image or pattern. For more information visit http://tinyurl.com/2dekw3r

Apple Store in Shanghai contributes to the design of buildings considered icons of structural glass achievement today. The store was inagurated the last July 2010th . It is located in the Pudong financial district, situated among the Oriental Pearl Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center, one of the tallest skycrapers worldwide.

The design is made by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Architects, a prominent american architecture studio, which has cooperated in other Apple stores as New York and London.

The glass cilindrical envelope is formed by tempered curved glass of 12 meters height and its design achieves the best integration between aesthetic and functional objectives through its structural system. Structure and envelope are formed by glass.

The facade resists wind loads acting all the glass panes together as a shell. It is achieved through the stainless steel conectors which link the glass panes. Therefore, this structural systems develop less stress in each glass panel and thus it decreases the glass thickness and makes possible this design.

The glass panes are fixed by a glass laminated fins, that forms a frame with roof glass beams that support the top of the cylinder.

In order to obtain a 12 meters curved tempered glass, an special oven was constructed only for this project to fabricate the largest pieces of curved tempered glass.

Through this design and use of materials, Apple communicates to the whole world perfection, innovation and passion for being the best.

Source: renatocilento.blogspot.com

Repost from the GKD pressroom

A beautiful park is emerging that will add a new dimension to downtown and realize a vital component of the Downtown Now! plan.
A space for performances, gatherings or quiet reflection. More here: http://tinyurl.com/26w2txw

Merchant and Evans pursued additional testing on their products to see exactly how well it stands up to hail damage and the results are excellent. The Class 4 rating applies to 0.032” aluminum or 24 ga steel or 16 ox copper or 8 mm zinc in their ZIP-RIB standing seam metal roof systems so you have several products to pick from. The knowledge that this product has received additional testing and has been shown to be strong and durable enough to receive a Class 4 rating is definitely good news for all of your upcoming projects that will utilize these products.

Original Text:

Merchant & Evans recently announced that they have successfully completed benchmark testing that meets the standard of Underwriters Laboratory Standard UL 2218 Class 4, Impact Standard for Impact Resistance of Prepared roof Covering Materials. The UL 2218 is designed to simulate hail impact and the classifications range from 1 to 4, these Class numbers relate to the roof covering’s ability to withstand impacts from various diameter steel balls ranging in size from 1 ¼” to 2” diameters dropped at 12’0” to 20’-0”. The acceptance criteria for the metal roof panels during testing include its ability to withstand the assigned class designation impact with no visible evidence of tearing, fracturing, cracking, splitting, rupture, crazing or any other opening of the roof covering layer. This classification is for metal panels placed over solid wood decking, 3/8” or greater in thickness.

NBK Terracotta and pre-cast concrete as a wall system