cutting-edge facades

Cutting-edge facade in Karlsruhe, Germany by SAL

Here are a couple cutting-edge facades that I happened to have walked past in Karlsruhe, Germany. In the top photo, the facade has sun shades that change their angle based on the angle of the sunlight at any particular day and time. The entire year's planned solar angles are built into a computer software program that automatically changes the shades on the facade.

The green architectural benefit to having automatically-adjusted solar shades on the exterior of a building is that the interior spaces can be guarded better from ultraviolet rays that could cause the interior temperatures to rise. Keeping interior temperatures low in the summer and higher naturally in the winter is a passive solar technique that obviously reduces the need for mechanical heating and cooling, thus saving money and environmental resources.

We were able to get a tour of the building, to see the shades from the inside and the outside of the building. We also were able to go and see the computer that controlled the shades. We talked with the German engineer who took care of the building. He said, unfortunately, that there were occasional glitches and that the system still had bugs that needed to be worked out. Yet, we were there in 2001 to tour the building. This technology was superior at the time and still is cutting-edge today.

Cutting-edge facade in Karlsruhe, Germany by SAL

If you cannot go high-tech, then go low-tech and add a screen upon which foliage can grow naturally. The foliage, if it has leaves, then shades the building in the summer. When the leaves fall off in the winter, the building can then be heated a bit by the sun.

Studies show that preventing the summer heat from passing beyond the exterior facade structure is much more effective than stopping the extra heat gain once it has entered the building, i.e. by using interior curtains and ceiling fans for example. Green architectural concepts were not revolutionary in Germany at the time. We are still lagging behind Germany year 2001.

german glass wonders

German Glass Building by SAL

For six weeks, my most beloved professor Jackie Gargus from The Ohio State University took myself and several students all around a good part of germanic Europe. I do not think I am exaggerating when I write that we walked probably for 12 hours a day going from one spectacular site to another as quickly as possible. We often had to run to find a restroom and skipped meals from time to time in pursuit of excellent architecture.

As we walked along quickly, I snapped as many photos as was humanly possible. These two buildings are such random germanic buildings that we walked by quite rapidly. If I knew where they were located, I am not sure it would make much of a difference. These are not particularly on any journalist's radar, but they are stunning nonetheless and this is why I am including them in my blog.

German Glass Building by SAL

I may be so bold as to write that German architects have perfected the use of glass. In fact, I wrote an article for The Architect's Newspaper about the addition to the Cleveland Museum of Art that was designed by Rafael Viñoly. In  my interview with Viñoly's firm, I was told that the team had sourced the new glass enclosure details in Germany.

The glass used at the Cleveland Museum of Art is similar to Sir Norman Foster's British Museum's glass and steel roof structure. In any glass roof structure, the type of glass is carefully selected so that the interior space does not become too overly heated nor too overly sunny. 

The first glass and steel structure in historical records was The Crystal Palace built in 1851 for The World's Fair in London. The architects and engineers did not quite get the glass "right" in that building as a tornado formed within causing a good deal of destruction. We have come a long way since then!