Solarlab Customizing Solar Facades Structure
CUSTOMIZING SOLAR FACADES
CUSTOMIZING SOLAR FACADE STRUCTURE
SolarLabs light weight solar rain-screen leverage existing, familiar and well proven technologies with our proprietary mounting systems and custom solar panels to provide easy to install and resilient facades. This de-risks the process and facilitates a quick learning curve with predictable outcome and lower costs.
Fundamentally the solar rain-screen consists of 3 structural layers. The outer skin that is based on well proved and resilient PV technologies, but where SolarLabs production affords a broad scope of customization in colors, finishes, textures and dimensions.
The proprietary mounting system is the foundation that securely attaches the solar facade to the underlying building structure and allows for fast, secure and easy installation on any building.
Finally the middle layer that provides the structural integrity, geometric flexibility and individual panel level orientation. Typical scope boundary for the solar rain-screen is the supporting wall surface or the vertical girts, where we mount our horizontal rails.
Just as important for a functional, resilient and durable solar facade is the electrical and monitoring system design. To handle transitory shading as well as future trees or buildings around the building we engineer the electrical system with panel-level power management and rapid-shutdown for safety. Here the scope boundary is the AC side of the 3-phase inverters and the web based monitoring interface.
Our EU based production pipeline allows us to both be uniquely flexible and responsive, allowing us to provide a high degree of project specific customization, as described above and we are always ready to help an explore ways to innovate just the right solutions for your project and answer any questions that may arise in the concept and design phases.
To get you started we have provided our design guidelines for typical ventilated solar rain-scree in a PDF below, along with a product description flyer and our dynamic component with BIM for SketchUp, Rhino and Revit.
We hope this will help you explore the opportunities a custom solar facade from SolarLab provides and to communicate your vision to stakeholders, colleagues and clients. When you are ready we are always ready to provide feedback and design support as well as realise your project.
WHY DESIGN FACADES WITH SOLARLAB ?
AS THE ARCHITECT WE SUPPORT YOU WITH
-Unparalleled design freedom : Color, finish & texture ,Panelisation & mounting geometry
- Non-fading, resilient, durable & low-maintenance facade
- Cost-effective path to ZEB-COM & NET-ZERO
- Makes it easy to build sustainably
- Free design & scoping support
- Free CAD tools for Rhino, Revit and SketchUp
AS THE OWNER WE HELP YOU BY PROVIDING
- Premium facade adds value opportunity
- Positive RoI – environmentally and financially
- Low maintenance and long life
- System warranty from single supplier
- 100% recyclable and ready for a circular economy
- High profile sustainability contribution
- Long and deep experience with solar & BIPV
AS THE INSTALLER WE ASSIST YOU WITH
- Proven, tested and certified facade system
- Modular system that is easy to work with
- Low weight & easy assembly for fast installation
- Rugged and known technology
- Installation & commissioning guides and support
- In-house design, engineering and production
- Complete system package with documentation
information
USE
- Facades, Ventilated Facades
- Rain-screens
- Cladding For Exterior Insulation Systems
CERTIFICATION
- Dgnb/breeam/leed Points
- Fire Resistant Certified To Euroclass B-s1-d0 & Astm Class A
SIZES
- Customised Panels From 360 X 360mm
- Up To 3600 X 1000 Mm
- 2400 X 1400mm
CHARACTERISTICS
- Lightweight
- Low-maintenance
- Cost-effective
- High-efficiency
- Active And Passive Areas Are Indistinguishable
- Fully Certified
- Resilient
- Durable
- Customisable Color/finish/dimensions/mounting Options
APPLICATIONS
- New Build And Retrofit
- Hospitality
- Commercial
- Healthcare Facilities
- Education And University Buildings
- Sports Centers
- Transport And Logistics Terminals
- Industrial And Public Works Buildings
- Residential Buildings
- Senior Centers
- Data Centers Etc.
MOUNTING SYSTEMS
HIGHLY RESILIENT TEMPERED GLASS
The highly resilient tempered glass outer skin support 3 primary styles of facade finish. From the super smooth Crystal finish over the Etched mat surface to the Deep-Structured rolled glass, they afford very different material experiences and play of light. This allows individual architectural interpretation and integration of the custom design solar facade to seamlessly achieve the desired outcome.
SHINGLES
The overlapping panels of the Scales family provides a depth to the facade and a texture that add life and character to the panelisation. With build heights as low as 80 mm this ventilated cladding solution can be customized both in dimensions and articulation.
First deployed at the Red River College in Winnipeg where the large panels softly changes color as they flow around the buildings. Leveraging a range of panel sizes up to 2400 by 1400 mm, and tiled in clusters this allows the highly efficient solar facade to seamlessly integrate in the building design by providing both human and building scale element without dominating the resulting implementation.
SEQUINS
The randomly and individually articulated panels of the Sequins family provide a lively and highly expressive facade cladding that continuously change with the daylight and the viewer. The subtlety of these color changes can be tailored, as can the dimensions of the individual panels to fit the desired building design.
The system was first deployed at the Copenhagen International School where the 12.000 identical panels never look the same due to the anisotropic nature of the glass coatings and the panel geometry. These dramatic visual impressions allows the building to articulate and highlights the sustainable efforts and shows that taking responsibility can be both beautiful and cost-effective.
SKIN
The smooth flat mounted Skin family allows for build heights as low as 60 mm and for seamless integrations with traditional cladding solutions to provide a more monolithic and unified architectural form.
This family lends itself very easily to energy renovations where the low profile along with the cost-efficient panelization allows solar facade integration without compromising the original architectural design. First deployed at the Bornholm hospital and the Trifolium projects in Denmark it can be mounted directly unto the insulating layer to further reduce complexity, build height and cost.
FINISHING
SURFACE FINISHING
The highly resilient tempered glass outer skin support 3 primary styles of surface finishing. Front the super smooth Crystal finish over the Etched mat surface to the Deep-Structured rolled glass, they afford very different material experiences and allows architectural interpretation and integration of the custom design solar facade to seamlessly achieve the desired outcome.
SATIN
The Satin finish is our most popular and highly recommended panel finish, as it allows for a self-cleaning and maintenance free facade while it all but eliminates glare and can therefore be deployed in airports and close to traffic. A further advantage of the smooth satinated finish is its well documented ability to harvest more electricity from the sun than traditional PV glass.
CRYSTAL
Our Crystal finish provides a dramatic and beautifully precise visual character that lifts it out of the mundane to tell a story of high-tech and futurism. It also allows the solar facade integration into curtain wall facades without noticeable differentiation to the material expression.
TEXTURE
To give the surface more depth and character we also have a range of deep-structured glasses that not only adds a macro level play of light and tactile textures, but also enhances the light gathering ability of the panel like the satinated glass finish does.
COLORS AND COLOR TECHNOLOGIES
- To provide a maintenance free and long service life facade, we integrate color behind the tempered low-iron glass where it is protected from the suns UV rays, but also use polymer free coloring system to ensure color stability for the entire life of the facade.
- From the natural material colors and classic ceramic frits to the structural colores created through PVD coating we provide a comprehensive range of coloring technologies to provide flat, metallic or chameleon style colors.
NATURAL
- The supreme clarity of the ultra low-iron float glass defines the most efficient glass available, with crisp reflections, but also a higher risc of glare and disturbing reflections.
- The natural float glass allows visibility to the photo voltaic cells that adds an intriguing visual detail to the facade, while our wide range of structured and finished glass allow the sculpting of reflections and optimization of the light harvesting in non-optimal orientations.
- The low-iron crystal glass allows the active solar facade to blend invisibly in a curtain-wall facade while it reflects the world around it.
PRINT
Traditional spandrel printing with ceramic colors on the rear of the glass allows for varying degrees of transparency using patterns and defined colors that can be precisely and uniformly defined as the resulting cladding will be isotropic in nature.
This affords very broad design freedom and allows for multi colored patterns and graphics as well as very precise color calibration. The technology masks and reflects the incoming light with dots of colored glass that is melted into the rear of the glass and is therefore less efficient that the structural colors of the natural glass, and will result in a less efficient solar facade solution, but with unique visual opportunities.
STRUCTURAL COLORS
Structural colors achieved through PVD coating on the rear of the glass provides a unique combination of unparalleled efficiency and uniquely beautiful colors.
The colors are achieved through a multi layered nanoscale filter that ensures only very specific wavelengths of light are reflected and therefore ensures that most of the light is transmitted trough the glass to be harvested by the PV cells. The solutions are often anisotropic in nature and can be made to change color depending the position of the sun and spectators viewing the surface. This SolarLabs preferred color technology as the will never fade and we have a long track-record of completed projects with the technology, both for new build and revitalized architecture as well as for both large and small buildings