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Perched on a narrow, sloping site above Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown, New Zealand, Lakes Edge House enjoys superb views of the lake and the surrounding mountainous landscape. With its timber-clad base and dark Swisspearl-clad upper level, the house seems to hover precariously above the site.
Louisiana Children’s Museum presents a transformative model for children’s museums that weaves together indoor and outdoor learning opportunities. Its facade’s colour palette was chosen to provide a subtle reference to traditional limestone façades of public buildings within the park, and to create an optimal backdrop for the rich, changing light over the nearby lagoon. The lightness of the panels provides a projection surface for the ever-changing shadow patterns from the building louvres and water reflections from the lagoon. A combination of smooth panels and panels with a subtle pixelated pattern embossed on the surface creates a playful dance across the long elevations.
Herba House has two distinct faces, closed to the street and open to the river. The “house” to the street facing northward is clad in black Swisspearl panels, while the southern part of the house consists of terraces that open out onto the riverside and cascade down the slope.
As a society, we face huge construction challenges: we not only need to build millions of homes, schools, and other buildings, but these buildings need to be low-energy, low-carbon, and built to maximise our wellbeing. Wiki House in Mongolia has been constructed using a digitally manufactured building technology with low carbon emissions, minimising heat loss and waste. It is also energy efficient and was easy to construct.
Located a mere ten minutes from central Gothenburg, alongside a small golf course, Gårda Johan Fastighets AB’s new headquarters in St Jörgen Business Park was inspired by the American model, offering its tenants a wide variety of activities and opportunities for social encounters.
How a US technical campus is successfully inspiring a future generation, meeting ecological challenges, and supporting equality in the trades through practical planning.
This bar is more than 182 metres long but only about 24 metres wide on the north and south ends. The combination of berms at the lowest level and sizeable top-floor cantilevers sheltering generous terraces on the ends means the academic bar, when seen from the highway or the nearby houses, appears as a one-storey volume clad in Swisspearl panels.
The University of Limerick Climbing Centre is the premier indoor climbing facility in Ireland and caters for Ireland’s fastest growing sport. Through engaging workshops with the clients and end users, Hugh Kelly Architects developed the project brief and concept design, pushing the boundaries of the project.
One of the aims for the expansion of this single-family house, which dates back to the 1980s, was to create a harmonious ensemble of old and new while respecting the building‘s natural surroundings. To achieve this, the architect chose a reduced, box-shaped wooden structure clad in large, dark grey Swisspearl panels and floor-to-ceiling glass openings, creating a strong contrast without dominating or competing. While the extension opens up to the existing building and garden in the south, it is closed towards the gravel road in the north. By perforating this closed facade of Swisspearl panels in the form of an abstracted tree branch, the extension is reminiscent of the old orchard.
This apartment block in Hévíz, Hungary is an excellent example of how Swisspearl panels can be implemented in diverse ways to adorn facades. Custom-made patterns have been cut into the panels to create lively patterns. The curve of the primary body of the apartment building is emphasised by a projecting entry structure that has been clad in such perforated Swisspearl panels. The delicate round perforations in varying sizes form an organic pattern and allow rays of light to shine through the panels. Swisspearl panels have also been employed as vertical sliding shutters on the balconies of the upper floors.
Located near Riga in Latvia, Ozola and Bula Architects’ new Music and Art School consists of three distinct volumes that step down in response to the slope of the terrain. An outdoor stepped walkway and an indoor corridor link the three colourful volumes to one another.
After a fifteen-year planning period, the inhabitants of Wickham in Western Australia finally got their new community centre. A bent roofscape encompasses the communal spaces. The group of buildings also integrates existing and new sports facilities. Gresley Abas Architects from Perth were responsible for the architectural concept of the new Wickham Community Hub, tailor-made for the needs of the population.
The building’s main effect is created by the facade cladding, which is oriented in part outward, and in part toward the areaways. The cladding is composed of vertical stripes and solid-colour Swisspearl fibre cement panels – 12,000 square metres of Swisspearl Carat in fourteen standard colours and eleven special colours.
The National Museum Restoration and Storage Centre, OMRRK, is a new institution that provides an outstanding technological building for the preservation of the collections of the Museum of Ethnography, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Hungarian National Gallery.
The complex was completed in May 2019 as part of the Liget Budapest Project. Within the framework of the development, unique in Central Europe, world-class art storage warehouses and conservation-restoration workshops will be housed in five adjacent buildings on four underground and three above-ground levels, covering a total area of nearly 37,000 square metres.
The Green Line House in Warmia, designed by Przemek Olczyk from Mobius Architekci Warsaw, won the Grand Prix in the European Property Awards 2019 -2020. We are proud that our Swisspearl roof panels are part of this seminal building. This solitary house remains lonely in a landscape, without adjacent buildings, away from roads. Harsh landscape prompted Przemek Olczyk, an architect and the author of the project, to use transparent and legible tectonics, thus embedding the building in the morphology of the plot.
Skilful adaptation of the architecture to the structure of the plot ensures that the scale of the 500 sqm house does not overwhelm it. Due to the strong winds in this part of the Warmian Lake District, the design employs an atrial layout. The screen of glass walls of the building provides a transparent shield while maintaining important viewing axes for the users.
Located on a prominent site between Western Road and the River Lee in Cork, DTA Architects’ new student accommodation provides 190 student bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms in 28 cluster apartments, with reception and communal amenity facilities on the ground floor.
The Radio and Television Studios of Slovakia (RTVS) are located near the historic centre of Košice. Like many older buildings in the city, the building has recently been renovated. The project’s goal was to renovate the central administration building and improve its energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Thus, one of the main aspects was the renovation of the building envelope.
The curtain wall was upgraded by combining a weatherproofing system and aerated façade system with a cladding of russet-coloured Swisspearl panels assembled vertically. Projecting grey-plastered pilasters at intervals and vertical strips of windows enhance the vertical rhythm. The facades of the broadcasting room, which projects above the surrounding control rooms and office spaces, is clad in Swisspearl panels cut at angles to create a dynamic, unconventional effect.
Designed for a large family of seven, House XL is located on the outskirts of a new residential area in the east of Slovenia. SoNo Architects’ design takes its cue from the typically Slovenian architectural elements and the rolling hills and fields surrounding it.
The house consists of three, double-pitch, gable-roofed volumes: two of which are perpendicular and run parallel to one another, thereby creating a sheltered outdoor living and eating space between them. In essence, SoNo architects’ design is a modern interpretation of a rural barn.
What at first glance appears to be a single-family villa enclosed by an enormous pitched roof with timber-clad eaves, are actually four separate apartment units. Villa Faun is an apartment complex located in the northwest slope of Oslo with a panoramic view over the city and the Oslo Fjord in the distance. The surrounding neighbourhood is characterised by various types of Norwegian houses built during the last century. The concept of the design team was to bring together a unifying identity to the project, while creating private, individual units.
Villa Void is situated in Saltnes, a village south of Norway’s capital Oslo, on a lush, west-facing site with views towards the outskirts of Oslofjorden. Tall pine trees and a gentle slope towards the northwest characterise the site. From the onset, the architects Resell + Nicca decided that the 29 pine trees would be preserved, that the design of the house would correspond to the various levels on the plot, and the trees would be visible from the key areas within the house.
With its clear lines, Villa Void is inspired by the forms of existing houses in the neighbourhood. The combination of materials—dark-grey Swisspearl panels on the outer skin, and a warm wooden interior, also used on the recessed exterior areas—underline the sculptural character of the house.
Located on the foothills of Vitosha Mountain in Sofia, ACME is a residential complex consisting of three building volumes accommodating eleven apartments. The architectural concept focuses on the design of the roofs, which merge seamlessly with the facades and are treated like a fifth facade.
By continuing the Swisspearl facade cladding as a roof covering, and eschewing an eaves overhang, the archetypal form of « house » has been abstracted and the scale of the house visually reduced. The smooth, dark Swisspearl panels create a strong visual contrast with the russet textured brick facades.
107 Forbes is a new, single-tenant office building facing Rowe Boulevard, a prominent location at the gateway to the city’s historic centre and West Annapolis neighbourhood. The new building replaces a group of commercial buildings along Rowe Boulevard. In order to get permission for the building, it had to fit within the existing footprint and maintain a similar volume, height, and floor area. The ground floor façade is constructed from timber cladding and glass, while the upper floor is clad in thin horizontal strips of overlapping grey Swisspearl panels. Large windows bring ample light into the interior. The upper floor cantilevers over the lower level longitudinally, creating the impression of a floating box.
This project elevates its neighbourhood’s existing design paradigm by implanting a modern canon that bridges the residential and commercial scales of the West Annapolis neighbourhood. The structure’s linear planks quite literally reflect the scale of residential siding and – perhaps a bit more abstractly – what one would find on the hull of a ship, tying the neighbourhood to the overall spirit of Annapolis as a maritime city.
With its distinctive red and grey clad high-rise towers, Cepa Housing İncek forms part of the Çayyolu-Alacaatlı residential area within the wider development of western Ankara. This is a high-end district introducing innovative, distinguished and bold projects.
Although the district where Cepa housing is located has high-quality buildings, there are also mediocre, undefined buildings dispersed in the neighbourhood. Architect Ali Osman Öztürk chose Swisspearl panels in strong colour tones to give this housing development its own identity.
A slightly shiny surface and its metallic character are the unmistakable trademarks of the Swisspearl Reflex facade panels. The fact that the building envelope nevertheless does not appear overloaded, but scores with a discreet understatement, is demonstrated by the Shiny House, which is located in Zagreb.
The single-family house, which stands on a slight hill, was realised with a white colour and radiates a simple elegance and timeless beauty.
Situated near Tosen Fjord in a remote part of Norway, Storelva hydropower plant was designed by Stein Hamre arkitektkontor, not only as a power plant, but also as a hiking destination and tourist attraction.
The power plant is situated beneath a waterfall on open solid bedrock. To echo this, Stein Hamre has conceived the building as a massive rock. In order to emphasise its mass, the building is completely clad in horizontal layers of Swisspearl panels in different shades of dark grey, with thin fissures of horizontal strips of glass dispersed across the facades. The glass in the fissures has a high reflection quotient, thus mirroring the natural surroundings, which change throughout the day depending on the natural light.
Otago Polytechnic Student Village provides over 200 student rooms and associated common areas and amenities on campus. The quality and character of the village rival the best examples of student accommodation in Australia and New Zealand and significantly enhance the appeal of Otago Polytechnic and Dunedin City as a place of learning.
The elongated building reflects the predominant forms of the multi-storey buildings surrounding the site. Where possible, the plan has been staggered to generate a form that is offset between different accommodation units, in order to reduce the scale and to provide depth. Trees and sports fields screen the building from the public site boundaries.
Black Villa is a combination of state-of-the-art technology and simple, clean design that respects the existing conditions of the site and neighbourhood. The single-family house is a great example of how one can use materials and colours in order to tie a building into its natural surroundings.
The facade is clad in fire-resistant Swisspearl fibre cement panels in a dark charcoal hue. All doors and windows have aluminium frames with dual glazing of high R-value to help reduce energy loss. Deep overhangs and screens over the glazing areas help to protect the structure from the severe Californian sun and help to reduce the use of air conditioning.
The envelope is a core element of this sustainability strategy, which covers the building’s entire life cycle—from manufacturing and construction to utilisation and postoccupancy. The façade system features extensive high-performance glazing, veiled by a perforated skin made of sustainably produced and recyclable Swisspearl panels. Dotted by countless circular holes, the cladding helps minimise energy consumption by letting plenty of natural light penetrate the building. At the same time, it screens a number of manually operable windows, which allow the interiors to be naturally ventilated, improving air quality and comfort levels while significantly reducing expenditures for air-conditioning units. Beyond its practical benefits, the perforated cladding serves a major aesthetic purpose. Inconspicuous during the day, the myriad perforations create a striking display when the interior is fully lit, conferring a glowing, almost dematerialising effect to the façades. Moreover, the perforation pattern incorporates the company logo, thus advertising the brand to the nearby A1 highway, which connects Lisbon and Porto, the country’s most populous cities.
The challenge for the architect Andris Vitols was to preserve the old facade of the original building situated one kilometre north of the Daugava River in central Riga. A bold contrast has been created with this sleek modern addition inserted above a traditional timber-clad facade.
Situated on a street with continuous adjoining masonry facades, this office and residential building creates a striking contrast with its pop-up addition clad in white Swisspearl panels. While the lower two levels are constructed in off-shutter concrete clad in timber boards, the upper three levels are constructed in concrete brickwork and clad in white Swisspearl panels assembled vertically and horizontally.
Tartu University Hospital Extension includes three new expandable units for the hospital complex, which was built over a number of decades. Two new units, the children’s hospital and outpatient surgery, are accommodated in the extension of this clinic.
The various buildings designed and built in their time, showcase a variety of architectural styles and materials. This project is a continuation of the previous attempt to combine existing architectural elements and create a harmonious whole. The extension is designed with a lofty, triple-volume atrium between the two so-called “towers”. One of the main concepts was to create a long gallery to the rear of the building to ease the logistics of the entire hospital complex. The linear accelerators for the radiotherapy department are situated beneath the atrium on the basement floor. All personnel circulation, as well as material flow for the hospital has been placed in a new “internal street” between two, eight-storey wings.
Form and surface meld to express the Red Barn’s inspiration. The simple gable form and the diminutive outbuilding with its vibrant red exterior recall the typology of a traditional barn. Only upon closer inspection do the glazed ends, entry portal, hangar door, and contemporary cladding denote another reality for the building. The Red Barn’s meaning lies somewhere between the past it references and the present it occupies.
Colorado College’s expanded and transformed Tutt Library is America’s largest carbon-neutral academic library. The library has been transformed into a colourful, dynamic facility, accommodating the requirements of a contemporary library and the college’s unique academic programme. Designed during an era when libraries were primarily containers for books, the original building was intentionally introverted. Pfeiffer’s design of the new centre turns this introversion inside-out, to better reflect the changing use of the library and the values of Colorado College.
A primary architectural criterion for the San Bartolomeo Church in the northern Italian town of Andrate was to design a building clearly legible as Christian. To this end, a nine-metre-high inclined bell tower was incorporated as an instantly recognisable symbol of the Christian faith, which still plays a central role in Italian society today.
The most effective solution chosen in order to realise the sleek architectural design was a reinforced concrete structure for the church cube and the bell tower. From the outset, the high-performance properties of a ventilated facade made its application obvious, and Swisspearl panels appeared to offer the best product quality. The ventilated facade provides numerous technological advantages: durability, cleanliness, thermal comfort, dry installation of the panels, and waterproofing. The large-format white panels enhance the dynamic, slanted form of the church and contrast strongly with the stained glass rhomboid window openings.
Located at Pike and Pine on Capitol Hill, Chloe on Madison is a vibrant, mixed-use home of 137 units and truly memorable amenity spaces that create and nourish community.Targeting LEED for Homes Gold, the design achieves an innovative balance of creativity and technical solutions.
The Heaney Centre is a new community arts centre in Bellaghy, County Derry. This small village is best known as the birthplace and childhood home of Irish poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, to whom the new building is dedicated.
The Aurora precinct in Canberra is a sustainable, mixed-use scheme consisting of high-quality apartments, restaurants, and office spaces within the Kingston Foreshore precinct on Lake Burley Griffin. Quality urban architecture and sustainability were primary aims for both the client and the architect.
Black Box II is the latest in a series of micro-additions that significantly impact existing buildings. Conceived as a giant jewellery box, large openings blur the boundary between interior and exterior, revealing its treasure of fine craftsmanship through the playful use of complementary surface materials. The Black Box II addition to the existing masonry house is clad in large-format, black Swisspearl fibre cement panels finely assembled with matching rivets. The balustrade of the loggia is a single, large perforated Swisspearl panel.
IaN+ has clearly demarcated the new reception area with their unusual, curved design and woven exterior surfaces clad with coloured panels of Swisspearl fibre-reinforced concrete and glass. The entire three-story volume is bathed in light that filters through the curtain of glass imbued with blue and green tones, echoing the ocean, which the building is situated alongside of. When the sunshine reflects off the cladding, the faceted facade shimmers like the scales of a fish and when the building lights up at night, it resembles the watery colours of an aquarium.
On a wild coastal stretch of Canada‘s Quadra Island, Patkau Architects have built an extraordinary single-family house that blends into the island‘s natural environment, while at the same time perfectly showcasing its rough beauty. The sea and its tidal impacts served as inspiration for the carefully designed layout and shape of the structure.
Stantec designed this bold auditorium/theatre addition to the existing Round Rock ISD high school to help offset the high frequency use of the district’s performing arts centre. The project has become a prototype for other school auditoria in the district.
Two shades of grey Swisspearl panels provide a high quality, low maintenance choice for the facade cladding, emphasising the stepped heights of the rectilinear volumes and contrasting with the light ochre, rustic stonewall cladding of the lower sections.
Iowa-based Neumann Monson Architects were commissioned by Iowa University to design a new boathouse to accommodate the women‘s rowing team. Positioned strategically on the curve of the Iowa River, the siting gives the boathouse a vantage point from where boats can be viewed gliding at speed through the water left and right up the sweep of the river.
The scheme involved a careful restoration of the dilapidated historical building, which now accommodates the traditional functions of the parsonage, such as the parson’s quarters, a classroom for religious education, the library, the banquet hall, and a visitor’s apartment. In addition, architects 4 plusz designed a new and decidedly modern structure that connects the two lateral wings of the existing U-shaped building and divides the garden space into two distinct courtyards. Fully glazed to either side, the transparent ground floor of the extension provides space for social events and opens a vista from the reception area to the rear garden.
This villa is a good example of a successful combination of Swisspearl panels with stone. A dialogue occurs here between the two interlocking materials, contrasting textures, and corresponding colour tones.
This public preschool in Sweden is an excellent example of the versatility of Swisspearl panels. The elevation of the building facing the public entry is a light, steel framework clad in perforated white Swisspearl panels assembled vertically with generous openings from the upper balconies to overlook the garden playground, while the main body of the building has been clad in distinctive vertical stripes of Swisspearl panels in white, and light and dark grey. Emerald green window frames brighten the colour palette, which is an appropriately lighthearted touch for the preschool.
Because it serves as the main entrance to the entire Hungarian SAP operation, the Lobby was an important part of the concept. The architects –Vikár&Lukács Architects – created a strong statement with the structure of the space. Our aim was to use interior design elements that respect the space, yet gently form it. In accordance with their Brand Guidelines, the background of the SAP logo can only be white. Besides using white colour, we wanted to use some very different, special surface and innovative technology. That is how we came to the choice of using Swisspearl panels. When we created the first renders and elevations, we realised perforation could add more energy to this concept. Our graphic designer worked out several layouts and we feel one of them works with the space and the logo perfectly.
Ingleside at King Farm, a Senior Living Retirement Community in Rockville, MD, recently worked with Perkins Eastman to expand their community and reposition their amenity spaces towards a new generation of residents. After embarking on a master planning exercise to create a roadmap for future growth, including a multi-phased expansion of its residences, Ingleside was challenged to seamlessly integrate the new with the old while making sure to not compromise on the services available to their existing residents.
The key goals of the master plan included expanded dining venues, as well as building a new Center for Healthy Living, innovative memory support, and rehabilitation centres catering to the Ingleside residents’ 120 new independent living apartments, and the surrounding community. These phases included approximately 41,800 square metres of renovation and expansion for the campus.
The master plan and new buildings were inspired by the original Ingleside building’s French-mansard roof, which faces the boulevard. The new planning and architecture draws on this aesthetic to reference lively and eclectic Paris side streetscapes for the cross streets with a dynamic collection of modern (as in the new Independent Living spaces) and more intimately-scaled and historic-inspired spaces such as those for memory care and day care.
Over the past several years, numerous national and international firms have settled in Poznan; therefore, there is great demand for office space and high pressure on developers to make a mark architecturally and thereby distinguish themselves from competitors.
A particularly sensational example of this is the Jet Office building, which the local architectural office Insomia built at the intersection of two main transport axes in the north of the city. The plot’s unique shape demanded a special approach to design in order to optimally utilise floor areas. Normally, office buildings have a central access core and a regular support grid offset from the exterior walls to assure maximum flexibility in the distribution of spaces and facades. However, apart from one single internal row of supports, the reinforced concrete structure of the Jet Office is arranged peripherally.
Situated in an elevated position in the heart of campus, the Bellevue Student Success Center (SSC) is a gateway for visitors coming in through the main campus entrance. The centre’s layout pictures a student’s “ascent” through his academic career. Entry services are located on the first floor, student support services on the second floor, and spaces focused on celebrating the students’ success are located on the top floor.
The exterior reflects the programmatic organisation within the building, with the most active uses visible through a glazed facade. Facades of more inward looking areas have been clad in sand-coloured yellow and beige Swisspearl panels. Through the selection of two similar colour tones from the Swisspearl Largo Carat series, a dynamic effect.
The building’s exterior design exuberantly expresses the project’s three uses through its stacking of rectangular masses and changes in material, colours and window patterns. Although the design can appear at first glance to consist of three boxes, a closer look shows that the fire station is a combination of two rectangular masses and that the apartment block sits on a pedestal that separates it from the squash court section, making for a total of five major rectangular forms. The interplay between all these boxes creates a variety of setbacks and projections.
This vast educational complex in the Croatian capital of Zagreb is divided into three functional units arranged along a linear axis. The school at the heart of the facility features three parallel, three-story bars and is complemented by a lower nursery and kindergarten building to the west and a partially subsurface gymnasium to the east.
Uppsala Science Park is ranked as one of the world’s best corporate incubators and is known far beyond the borders of Sweden. Innovative ideas about life science, biotechnology, medicine, and IT are researched and developed here.
With 17,000 square metres distributed across five floors, the rectilinear building expresses its prominent status by its scale, proportioning, and materialisation. A broad façade clad in light grey horizontal and vertical panels is offset by a patchwork collage of diamond-shaped Swisspearl panels in shades of russet reds, oranges, and ochres. The autumnal colour palette and the intense rhythm of window openings is a reference to the adjacent historical buildings.
The replacement building for a sports centre that had seen better days marks the entry to a sweeping park in Derry/Londonderry. The architects arranged three decisive functions along a central axis and subtly differentiated them in their architectural expression: the facade skin combines zinc, wood, and light-permeable panels with Swisspearl panels in three different tones of grey.
Located in the centre of Tromsø, Kystens Hus – the “Coastal Seafood Center in Northern Norway“ - is a flagship building showcasing the country‘s powerful fishing industry. Envisaged as a hub for information and business related to the fisheries, research and development, and tourism, the facility‘s primary purpose is to showcase the city‘s and the wider coastal region‘s cultural tradition, natural wealth, and economic drive. The permeable, fully glazed ground level is conceived as an extension of the public realm. The centre‘s upper part accommodates office spaces and is clad in a multi-faceted envelope reminiscent of the rock formations lining the northern Norwegian coast.
This stylish, single-family house in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean coast, has been designed as a succession of interconnected thresholds that proceed through the building. Aluminium latticework screens have been used as a device to create subtle intermediary spaces.
The Mall of America in Minneapolis opened its doors to the public in 1992 and is now the most frequented building in the United States with over 42 million visitors per year. In an effort to preserve this notable status, Triple Five Group decided to reinvigorate the existing mall through an expansion, which would reinforce the centre’s strong brand and status as a tourist destination.
The exterior of the retail podium consists of a Swisspearl rainscreen and continuous glazing, which provide a backdrop to a dramatic installation at the entry.
Ostrovní is a modern residential housing project built on a gap site surrounded by historic architecture. It is situated in the heart of Prague, near the National Theatre, just a couple of streets away from Wenceslas Square. The shape of the land plot called for a unique construction solution. While limited space was a concern, the architects managed to fit in 2 apartments with light-flooded rooms onto each floor. The same is true for the main staircase. Two residential units located on each floor are entered from the hallway. The building houses a total of 8 apartments, including a maisonette occupying two top floors.
Kean University’s new College of Business and Public Management features large, student-focused communal spaces with dramatic multi-level connections to each floor. The school provides the several thousand students with a variety of spaces to interact, collaborate, study, and relax throughout the day.
Early conceptual visions for the exterior window pattern and corresponding facade design were translated to Swisspearl modular cladding for a clean exterior façade. The dark, slightly recessed facade in the base area lets the bright building volume hover above. Linear grooving reinforces the impression, lending the anthracite-coloured panels a matte restraint.
This 1980s office campus needed revitalisation to become a desirable, contemporary working environment. Opting to keep the revision cost effective yet creative, the original form of the building was retained, but refreshed with new materials and colours on the façades. New cladding was constructed with Swisspearl panels cut into complex patterns. Each panel was carefully cut to prevent any waste. The exterior materials were specifically chosen to be long-lasting and efficient during the construction and installation processes, thus reducing waste and labour costs.
Neptune Office Building is articulated in long, extended parallel lines of layered materials: stone, glazing, Swisspearl panels, and steel flashing in tightly packed, overlapping panels. Interlocking forms protrude from the facade envelope covered by the timber-clad eaves overhang that protects the upper floor outdoor balcony.
The Inland Northwest Behavioral Health Hospital represents a community investment into the growing need for behavioural health treatment. Through a holistic approach to design, the facility overcomes the stigma of mental health, and provides a safe, reassuring place where people can heal with dignity.
The X-shaped building stands on sloping terrain, which is balanced by a base. The outer shell of the house appears cautiously grey, in complete contrast to the inward-facing facades, which are formulated in striking colour combinations.
The building enclosure combines a variety of materials in response to the surrounding campus context. The rear ground-floor spaces are largely concealed behind limestone cladding; to the north, the envelope increases in transparency, culminating in a tapering glass curtain wall that accentuates the building’s main entrance. The architects used a seemingly paper-thin layer of white Swisspearl panels to sheathe the fully glazed upper sections of the east and west facades. The latter extends slightly beyond the pointed corner of the building where the lower part folds slightly away to extend a welcoming gesture to visitors. Inspired by the pattern of a composition booklet, a seemingly random arrangement of circular perforations feeds dappled light into the atrium and allows views from the second-floor walkway.
Completing the “E” is what the team at Perkins Eastman DC calls their addition. In the late 1920s and early 1930s as a nurse’s dormitory, it was planned that the building would have three wings, but it ended up with only two. For this reason the building sat as an “F” rather than an “E”. So completing the “E” doesn’t mean replicating the existing building’s style, footprint, or materials. It means making the old building work in its new life as a school. The addition of the brick facade shows continuation with the old, while the contemporary elevations covered in Swisspearl signal change: of function, of users, and of attitude.
École Enfants du Monde (International School) in Montréal was initially designed in 1961. Clad in Swisspearl panels, the new façades of the two-storey, rectilinear school are mainly white, but are also peppered with black and red to give the school a sense of fun. The local borough experienced an annual increase in the number of primary school pupils, which prompted the School Board to expand several of its schools, most notably the Enfants du Monde school. Due to the design versatility of Swisspearl panels, Birtz Bastien Beaudoin Laforest Architectes decided to clad the École Enfants du Monde with the fibre cement material to add some colour and a light-hearted atmosphere to the newly renovated building.
In July 2013, Denver Botanic Gardens, an institution with a long tradition of commissioning cutting-edge architecture, invited selected architectural practices to submit proposals for a “Science Pyramid,”. The new structure was to provide an exhibition space for the institution’s conservation and research efforts, thereby highlighting the Gardens’ broader mission as a scientific research body.
Faced with the task of designing a transparent pyramid, as specified in the competition brief, the architects of the winning competition entry, BURKETTDESIGN, drew their inspiration from the geological processes causing the ragged rock formations of the nearby mountain ridges. The envelope of the structure was likewise informed by a biological metaphor and features almost 500 dark grey, hexagonal Swisspearl panels, arranged in a honeycomb pattern and interspersed with thirty photovoltaic collectors and multiple windows and skylights.
The architect was hoping to design a very simple building, with very basic colours but which would not to be quiet and boring. The main goal is the motion captured in the “flying windows”, which are seen from both inside and out. If you view the building from the exterior, you can see that the faces appear to move slightly. When viewed from the inside through the destroyed window shape, the world seems to be moving. The building was constructed with a concrete skeleton; the facades were built using a concrete base with thermal insulation in an affixed ventilated facade system. All of the windows have electric blinds to allow incoming sun to be regulated during hot summer days. Solar panels are used for heating water.
Located in a remote part of Ontario in Canada, this single-family house is built on a site that gently slopes down toward Haliburton Lake. By designing the house as a long, narrow volume facing south, all the principal spaces enjoy copious amounts of natural light and views through the trees down to the lake.
In contrast to the timber roof structure and the stone-clad walls on the lower level, the exterior upper facades orientated north, east, and west are clad in matte black Swisspearl panels of varying dimensions, some attached horizontally, some attached vertically. The design dissolves the boundaries between interior and exterior by extending the exterior façade materials in the interior. The southern facade facing the lake has been dematerialised with great expanses of glazing to soak in light and views.
The new building for the College of Health and Human Studies at Missouri State University impresses through its sculptural formation. That can be said not only of the volume, but also the spatial organisation, which includes a communication zone connecting all floors.
Although the inner organisation is orthogonal, thereby transferring the logic of the street grid onto the building, one of the architect’s goals for their new university building was to break open the rigid geometry. This is evident not only in the slants and upturns of the entry front, but also in the nooks in the southwest, which mediate to the neighbouring residential development; the slightly buckled east facade towards South Holland Avenue; and finally, the folds of the roof. What thus arises is a sculpturally-formed volume whose physicality is emphasised by the all-over cladding with Swisspearl panels in the Carat model, based on the Sigma 8 fixation system. In interplay with the slightly recessed glazing, the horizontally offset panels underscore the building’s compactness, but as a recognisably thin façade skin, likewise emphasise its lightness. In this way, the new building creates a counterpoint to the rather heavy seeming limestone structures from the post-World War II decades. However, with the Onyx 7090 colour option, it purposely integrates into the existing spectrum of colours.
The brief for this project in Milan called for the urban renewal of the area and the renovation and conversion of the building for residential use. Sliding, screen-printed glass panels and black Swisspearl panels on the facades create a dynamic pattern of shifting planes held between the horizontal concrete floor slabs.
An integral part of a comprehensive sustainability strategy aimed at LEED Gold certification, the architects devised a rain screen facade clad in Swisspearl panels, which will boost the building’s energy performance and help keep long-term maintenance costs to a minimum.
A seven-story, U-shaped apartment block elevated on concrete pilotis accommodates 112, two-to-five-room apartments and encloses an inner courtyard with sports and recreation facilities including a large swimming pool and tennis court.
The modular facade is articulated at each level with subtle offsets that create a curved geometry, a set of concave and convex movements that follow the streets bordering the site. Swisspearl fibre cement panels are key to expressing this volumetric strategy. A lightweight material that allows for large-scale panels has proven to be the ideal material to articulate the facade shapes. A dark shade was chosen for the ground floor and penthouses, contrasting with the main body of the building, for which white was chosen.
This residential building is located in the idyllic town of Briztonas in the southern part of Lithuania. The small village on the right bank of the Memel River is known not only as a resort region, but also for its salty springs and healthy mineral water. Also the construction of the building relies on sustainable mineral raw materials and a natural, but above all, versatile appearance. A large part of the longitudinal facade, which faces the street, is made of the regionally known Lithuanian brick, which gives the building a sandy warm character. The exterior areas on the ground and upper floor are accessible through generous floor-to-ceiling windows and the roofed areas are cladded with warm wood lining. Complementing the brick and as another natural component, a large part of the facade is clad with Swisspearl Largo Reflex panels in a beige tone. The single-family house is a composition of natural materials unified in its shades and playing with different formats.
The building of the Moxy Hotel in Chicago meets the ground as a friendly, lively, and at the same time transparent component of its vibrant neighbourhood. An incorporated floor-to-ceiling glass wall in the guestroom corridor frames a dramatic view of the skyline, inviting guests to experience Chicago‘s charm. From the exterior perspective, the dominating glass is perfectly framed by grey Swisspearl fibre cement panels, providing a simple and plain appearance that implies itself into the context of the neighbourhood.
The total area of the three- to four-story business centre in Kaunas, Lithuania, is approximately 5,300 square metres, the bulk of which is available for rental. Modern heating, cooling, and ventilation systems installed in the business centre ensure a high level of comfort for employees and visitors of the centre, which accommodates 400 workstations. Furthermore, a relaxation zone with benches and green spaces is provided in the inner courtyard.
Architects Superform drew the inspiration for this kindergarten from a nearby learning path running through the Slovenian village of Cerkvenjak. Intended to enrich the children‘s spatial experience, the hallway itself varies in width and each playroom unit boasts a unique, irregular and contorted shape. The design of the Swisspearl envelope supports this idea.
Founded in 1994, the International School of Tianjin is a standard kindergarten to twelfth grade international school. The school offers an exceptional education for the expanding, culturally diverse international community in Tianjin. In 2018, the entire school building was given a new facade.
From the onset of the design, it was decided the bright red and yellow colours of the school emblem, a dragon and ball, should be incorporated into the facade. The new design continues the original exterior colour palette, but rather than plaster and paint, high-quality Swisspearl fibre-cement panels were utilised in eleven colour tones.
The Commons at Stanton Square, so called Martha’s Table, is a 55,000 square foot campus for community programmes that supports the healthy development of children and their families in a welcoming and safe environment. Designed by Washington, DC firm Cox Graae Spack Architects, the Commons was completed in May of 2018 for Martha‘s Table. The building features the use of four colours of Swisspearl fibre cement panels in a vertical orientation.
Varina Area Library is envisioned as a place for individual transformation and community advancement, as well as a learning hub. Situated in an agrarian part of Henrico County along the historic State Route 5, the new library connects Virginia’s historic capital in Williamsburg to its current capital in Richmond.
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