advanced building skins 14 | 15 June 2012 - lamp.tugraz.at - Graz ...

Prof. Dr.nat.techn. Oliver Englhardt
Institute of Building Construction
Graz University of Technology
Copyright © with the authors. All rights reserved.
Plastic Materials in Facade Applications
The Oskar von Miller Tower
Summary
Thomas Ries, Dipl.-Ing., Architecture Team
Evonik Industries AG, Germany, thomas.ries@evonik.com
In the contemporary architecture formable materials get more and more important. Plastic
materials are predestinated for modern architecture and its language of facades. The paper wants to
analyze the creative potential of plastic materials in façade applications and tries to prove it by
introducing a new contemporary project, the Oskar-von-Miller-Tower in Munich with its 42 m
high façade made of a translucent plastic material. In the conclusion the paper wants to answer the
question which are the characteristic and unique attitudes of plastic materials in façade
applications by a short comparison of buildings like Olympic Stadium Munich (1972), Art House
Graz (2003) and the Oskar-von-Miller-Tower (2010) also in relation to the possible change of
exposure to the material and the structural design
Keywords: Plastic material, formability, transparency, Oskar-von-Miller, Plexiglas
1 Introduction
In the Nineties of the last century a new kind of architectural organic design developed more and more.
This was not only ascribed to a new and special generation of architects, it is more caused by the
digitalization of the planning offices since the beginning of the Nineties. Finding structures and forms
with the help of digitalized mediums brought the architects and designer to a leaving of material
reality, a leaving of conventional geometries. Now every form, every structure seems to be possible,
can be simulated, and new complex geometries and new ideas of spaces and building designs are
creaeted totally free. That is one of the important reasons why designs of Zaha Hadid or Ben van
Berkel for example are existing and have been built in reality. Forms and structures becoming more
free flowing, amorphous – it began a time of creating a new organic style of architecture with new
materials suitable to the new development of designs. These materials must follow the simulated,
flowing form, nearly jointless in their surfaces. As building is characterized by economics more and
more the skin of the buildings become thinner and must include more and more technical functions.
We can realize this development in the line of projects like the Eden Project by Nicolas Grimshaw, the
art house Graz from Peter Cook and finally it cumulates in the skin of the Allianz Arena, Munich by
Herzog & DeMeuron or the envelope of the Unilever Building, Hamburg, by Behnisch architects. This
development and specification is characteristic for plastic materials with their attitudes and so you can
realize digitalization of building is one of the main reasons for reinforced application of plastic
materials in the building envelope after their “golden time” in the Sixties and Seventies.
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