ENVELOPES IN THE TERTIARY SECTOR

Filters, from Egon Eiermann to Rafael Moneo Ignacio Paricio & Cristina Pardal

With this article, we reach the end of the series we have devoted to setting out the proposals of contemporary architects to recover the function of filters in openings. On more than one occasion we have blamed minimalism for the disappearance of sun protection and the exaggerated exhibition of glass. We have held Le Corbusier responsible for this as the Swiss architect opted for pan de verre to close the openings, but it was Mies van der Rohe who dressed the tall buildings so typical of the tertiary sector in dematerialised glass skins. Since the Modern Movement architecture has tended towards the purification of shapes and the suppression of what for some architects is simply superfluous. But buildings in the tertiary sector still have trouble getting past the iconic image related to money and power that a completely glazed faade projects.

Throughout history, non-domestic architecture has been charged with symbolic connotations, for religious, territorial or economic reasons. Since the XX Century, it has been economic business values that most seek to express themselves in the architectonic image and they have been able to in the minimalism of continuous glass surfaces. The protection elements have been incorporated into this type of architecture only on occasions in which the technological excess or the complexity of the design entailed a special technology-related draw. The latticework of photosensitive diaphragms that cover the south faade of the Institut du Monde Arabe by Jean Nouvel added the proximity of its pattern to traditional moucharaby latticework to this attraction.

Photo: Magda Biernat

The typical sun protection in architecture has been abandoned due to its domestic, and in some cases picturesque, connotations that tertiary sector buildings eschew. Few companies would accept an emblematic building with cute rolling shutters.
But not all architects have taken it that way. On some occasions they have been able to reinterpret this sun protection, as simple as it is efficient, providing architectonic value and, more importantly, improving the conditions of comfort for the user.

Neither IBM nor Olivetti renounced improving the interior comfort of their headquarters in Stuttgart and Frankfurt respectively. They placed their trust in the most efficient solution: protection added to the glass enclosure. Both buildings are the work of the German architect Egon Eiermann and possibly owe the similarity in the solution adopted for the faade to the fact that they were designed and constructed in the same period, in the late 60s. Eiermann used exterior solar protection by way of adjustable visors separate from the glass plane. This separation generates an intermediate space like a lath house. The visors are tarpaulins tensed over a rectangular metal frame. This fabric sun protection reminds us of awnings, typical in domestic construction.

Photo: Jrn Schiemann

Eiermann recovers the tensed awning as an element of protection and gives it a leading role in the composition of the building by separating it from the glazed enclosure. The awnings are framed within the mesh formed by the posts that support them, the railings and the edges of the walkways outlining the faade that the building presents to the city. There is a curious parallel between this architect and his near-contemporary Jos Antonio Coderch. While in Llamb the latter was searching for the tradesperson capable of producing his innovative rolling shutters and later expanding his collaboration with the design of furniture and lighting, Eierman approached Wilde+Spiet to manufacture the brackets and frames of his awnings and later produced his office furniture with them, which is still relevant today. Both had to seek their design for their filters in traditional tradesmen and in this trade both found a broader platform for their creative abilities.

The building that Rafael Moneo created on the Campus Novartis in Basel, Switzerland, is another example that dignifies the tensed awning, in this case in stainless steel fabric. The building lies between the works of Frank Gehry, David Chipperfield, Adolf Krischanitz or Diener & Diener, with this type of protection in keeping with the most current faade solutions.

The large adjustable horizontal slats that the architects Paetzold and Schmid proposed for the Baader Wertpapierhandelsbank AG building again included a fabric covering tensed over an aluminium frame. On this occasion the design eschews the usual formalisation of fabrics, avoiding seams and tensors and covering the frame on both sides to give the slat thickness. The result suggests an enclosure with thick translucent panel shutters that to a certain extent may help limiting thermal losses.

Using exterior panel shutters is the leitmotiv of the small showroom designed by Ernst Giselbrecht. Beyond the anecdote of the dynamic game with which he usually presents this building, the enclosure offers great possibilities in terms of comfort and aesthetics.

Photo: Ernst Giselbrecht

Another protection mechanism for the opening itself found in tradition that has managed to find a place in buildings in the tertiary sector thanks to the inventiveness and lack of prejudices of some architects is the Venetian blind. The architecture company Scott Tallon Walker knew how to increase appreciation of this protection type in an office block on the banks of the River Liffey in Dublin. They did not renounce the minimalist image of a glass cube with a transverse cylinder that crowns the central patio, nor did they renounce the easy and very current way of drawing attention with a set of coloured lights that illuminate the faade at night; but even so they understand that their formal criteria are not incompatible with a suitable system of protection against the sun. The duly ventilated double glazing that closes the four faades includes a wooden Venetians blind in the intermediate chamber that ends up being the leading element.

The building maintains the image of a glazed cube but between the reflections of this glass the slats are always very much present.

The contemporary architect is forced to reconsider the use of adjustable filters. The new energy savings requirements and the eternal demands of comfort in the interior space cannot be satisfied with glass that is more and more expensive, with properties that are not adaptable to all situations. This costly glass, gradually less able to satisfy the new requirements, must be substituted with simpler glass complemented with filters equivalent to the old rolling shutters and the extremely effective solid shutters that alleviate the problems of the oversized dimensions of the current panes of glass with effective solar, thermal and acoustic protection.
From the digital platform filt3rs we would like to invite everyone to contribute to the knowledge and dissemination of the current protection methods for faades.