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

Advanced Building Skins
applied to the surface of the glass and even the sealants coming in contact with it take away its
recyclability. Textiles, however, can be 100% recycled depending on the base material and the coating
that it receives.
The reusability of a material is largely affected by the durability of the material and the ability to
remove unwanted components. Glass, for example, can be reused as long as the other components of
the system can still function. It, like clear plastics, can be used in greenhouse applications where
aesthetics may not be a concern. Textiles have not been around long enough to find many options for
reuse, but there may be possibilities in outdoor applications where aesthetics are not an item of
concern. As long as the fabric has not been damaged, reuse is likely to be possible in similar lowquality
applications.
All materials as applied to facades are repurposable in some way. Even textiles can be repurposed
through grinding down for use in other applications. Typically a material is better recovered as a
recycled material and even a reused one; therefore, Tensiwall is designed to recycle the majority of its
components and reuse what remains.
3 Design of Tensiwall
3.1 Overall Design
The system panels are designed as rectangular for simplicity of manufacture, assembly, installation,
and discussion. Since textiles are not transparent, but only translucent, the textile facade requires an
integration of glass to provide views through the exterior wall. The typical glazing geometry of
windows is circular. The reason for this is that the circular opening creates an even distribution of the
forces into the membrane on all sides of the opening and greatly reduces the possibility for tear. The
framing member is aluminum, similar to typical curtainwall systems. Similar to most curtainwall
systems designed for use in high-rise construction, Tensiwall is a unitized system. This allows for a
more precise stressing, better quality manufacture of the panel, faster assembly, and speedier
installation once on site. The limitation of the unitized system is the size allowed for the typical facade
panel - it is limited in one dimension to 4.5 m (15 ft) and about 10-13 m (32-42 ft) in the other. The
system utilizes four layers of membranes (Figure 6).
Figure 6: Tensiwall System Layers
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