A building’s façade has always garnered special importance from owners and architects alike. After all, the face is the face of the building, and the personality of the design is best reflected in a building façade. Hence, if you want your building to stand apart from the milieu of concrete jungle, choice of façade material is the right place to start.
Out of the plethora of choices of façade materials available at the architect’s disposal, more and more architects prefer to adopt clay-based cladding materials.
Wienerberger’s Aspect Cay Facades are dry cladding, ventilated façade systems (with louvers) that unites the advantages of two worlds of construction technology, making it a building technique of the future. The warm, natural look of terracotta is combined with a more contemporary rain screen curtain wall system to produce a truly advanced exterior wall system with these great advantages:
Clay, 100 per cent Natural: A correctly executed facade cladding, with clay façade tiles, is an excellent heat insulator. Thanks to its mass, ceramic has a high heat buffering capacity. The effect is as if the house were sheathed in a continuous second skin.
Ventilated: The Aspect Façade system allows air to circulate behind the panels to provide pressure equalization, preventing water from being drawn into the building. Additionally, a vapour barrier on the outside face of the back-up wall acts as a final air and water barrier.
Thermal and Sound Insulation: The major conductivity of thermal bridges with respect to the adjacent constructive elements is a critical point in buildings’ coverings. In these areas, stain, mold formation and the deterioration of constructive components may occur; as a consequence, this can lead to increased energy dissipation. Thanks to the installation of an insulator from outside without solution of continuity, the ventilated façade system allows to create an easy and advantageous reduction of thermal bridges.
Aspect Ventilated Façades create a constant thermal and acoustic insulation: the joints between the panels, the air gap ensure a strong reduction of noise pollution. The use of burnt clay increases the acoustic performances, granting an excellent behaviour with regard to rain and hail as well as closing off external noises.
Design Flexibility: Aspect Facades enhances the aesthetics of the building lending a modern touch to the design with traditional material. The tiles can be effortlessly combined with Steel, aluminium, glass or wood. It is elegant, natural and timelessly perfect.
Some of the major projects where Aspect Facades have been used are:
DMRC, Delhi Metro
The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has recently used Aspect in the latest extension of Delhi Metro, green line. DMRC was looking for a façade with unlimited longevity as it is a public utility space and Aspect clay tiles were their choice of façade.
Clay as a building material lasts for generations. The tiles were further customized to include a special red glossy finish for this metro line, which was a key success in terms of planned look.
Mangalore International Airport
Mangalore airport was the first airport to use Terracotta facades. The Airport Authority of India beautifully used Aspect facades to ornate the entrance of the Airport.
Dial 100, Lucknow
DIAL 100 is the Communication Hub for the Uttar Pradesh Police department. The building has a unique façade design with three colours used in an artistic pattern to create distinctive façade.