Rising demands for energy efficiency, technical functionality, and interior comfort in buildings necessitate the development of more efficient building envelope constructions. The building envelope serves as a mediator between a building's exterior and interior. In today's architectural landscape, it performs a multitude of functions to enhance the building's performance. These functions include building control systems, energy supply (such as gas and electricity), and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), among others. These elements primarily determine the functionality, efficiency, and safety of building spaces. Given that the nature of building envelopes heavily depends on these services, how can they serve as primary frameworks for building design development?
The origin of building envelope constructions relates to how form and materiality were used to control the interior climate of spaces. Initially, the building envelope served as the solution for the technical services needed by structures. For example, massive wall designs protected inhabitants from cold climates, dome-shaped laterite buildings in tropical architecture kept heat out, and brick chimney forms were integral to the building envelope in European architecture.
However, as architectural requirements evolved in the 20th century and new technologies met the technical needs of buildings, a clear distinction emerged between the building envelope and its services. Design trends leaned towards retaining form, materiality, and building elements as expressions of the envelope, while the technical services were concealed within it. Wall cavity spaces were introduced for wiring and plumbing, ceiling ducts and raised floors accommodated HVAC systems, and spatial planning limited the visibility of services like pipes on walls, hanging AC units, or satellite dishes on frontal facades.
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Pushing Boundaries: 11 Exteriors That Use Fabric For Protection, Shape, and LongevityNevertheless, due to the dominance of technical services in the production, performance, and sustainability of buildings, these elements often make themselves known. In situations where technical services are not initially planned for, they begin to appear as user needs arise, altering the building's exterior. An example of this is seen in Algiers' housing development, where modernist blocks intended for a contemporary population now feature exteriors cluttered with satellite dishes, electrical wiring, and clotheslines.
As observed by M. A. Diestro, these elements, clinging to building facades or proliferating on rooftops, add an additional layer to the urban fabric. They almost resemble a parasitic organism attached to existing structures. This improvisation leads the built environment into new expression realms, transforming building envelopes and facades into a display of the rhythm of technical services. In other cases, when buildings undergo repair, repurposing, and retrofitting, technical services cannot be hidden within the structure. Instead, they are implemented around the envelope, altering the building facade's character. This is exemplified by old town brick row houses repurposed for institutional use, with ventilation ducts added to the facade, thereby defining a new building envelope.
Technical services, although sometimes unintentionally exposed on the building envelope, can be leveraged as design and artistic opportunities to add a unique character to architectural envelopes. Components like steel pipes, plumbing carcasses, satellite dishes, or air conditioning units can be utilized as a framework to rethink the character of building envelopes, either during the design phase or as the building gradually evolves.
The Pallasseum housing block in Berlin, Germany, serves as an example of this approach. Designed between 1974 and 1977 by Jürgen Sawade, Dieter Frowein, Dietmar Grötzebach, and Günter Plessow, it was hailed as an excellent example of modern living within a brutalist building envelope, showcasing its concrete materiality. Home to over 2000 residents, the housing complex gradually gained character from the satellite dishes adorning its facade. The majority of apartments have a satellite dish, resulting in a proliferation of discs that sprout from balconies and disrupt the building's austere angularity.
Yet, these elements are embraced as a part of the new aesthetic. They are customized with photographic artwork ranging from soft-focus florals to family photographs. The building now constitutes one of Berlin's most unlikely art spaces and, perhaps, one of its most memorable sights due to the unique character of its envelope. This makeshift process of using building services as a framework for new building facades echoes the ideals of high-tech architecture, which seeks to implement novel forms of buildings with technical services from the design stage.
High-tech architecture developed in British Modernist architecture and emerged in the late 1960s. This architectural style incorporates elements of high-tech industries and advanced construction techniques into building design. It uses technical and building services as the design's framework, structurally expressing them within the building's envelope. From the design stage, the building envelope's innovation is demonstrated by showcasing the service elements on the facade.
A prominent example is the Centre Pompidou in Paris, designed by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano in 1977. It reinterpreted museum typology by prominently featuring the building envelope's service elements. The Centre Pompidou's exterior is adorned with lifts, escalators, and ventilation ducts around a vast steel frame. This design leaves the interior gallery spaces entirely free, open, and adaptable. The design further emphasizes the service elements with color patterns that create a unique building profile.
The high-tech architecture movement may not have been widely embraced but it reflected a building’s technical services as an integral part of its performance. Along with the makeshift service envelopes, they highlight how building services manufacture the interior climate independently of external conditions and other building elements that form the building envelope.
Moreover, it prompts questions about the performance of a building envelope. For instance, how effectively it shields the interior from external influences, how its structure can accommodate all necessary technical services, and how it reacts to future unexpected technical services. This perspective has inspired innovative concepts like adaptive building envelopes—these respond dynamically to changing conditions and needs. It also led to facade designs that double as maintenance structures, double-skin envelopes, and more. When interpreted as design opportunities, these technical services can create new architectural forms and enhance the performance of spaces.
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