External envelope.

501

One of the problems faced by air traffic controllers when tracking aircraft is interference caused by radar beams bouncing off nearby buildings and registering ghostly images on the screens. This is potentially dangerous. Using the principles of Stealth technology, BTR Material Systems and EDM Spanwall have developed a new cladding panel, called Ramclad, which deals with interference by reducing the reflective properties of buildings. Being stationary objects, buildings pose a somewhat different problem from aeroplanes, but in devising a solution, Ramclad's designers were able to make the assumption made in Stealth technology - that radar energy can be neutralised.

The new panel absorbs the signal, dispersing it within its bulk which is composed of layers of various materials, including aluminium, pvc, rubber and rock fibre insulation. Its internal construction, density and composition correspond exactly to the wavelength of radar frequency. Manufacture of the panels has to be to exacting tolerances.

The new cladding should make airports safer, and may revolutionise their design, for it should now be possible to build closer to runways without affecting air traffic control and to construct taller buildings closer to radar aerials.

The first building to incorporate Ramclad is the World Cargocentre now under construction on the southern perimeter of Heathrow Airport, London. The client is British Airways World Cargo and the centre was designed by W. S. Atkina Consultants. When completed in January 1999, it is expected to constitute one of the most sophisticated automated cargo-handling systems in the world. The centre will be four storeys high, about the size of six football pitches on plan, and only 450m from the south runway.

In the face of concern by the Civil Aviation Authority that reflections from such a large structure would interfere with the airport's radar systems, Wing Commander Ramsay Browne - who is a civil aviation radar reflections expert - was asked to draw up a cost-effective scheme for reducing the reflective properties of the building. As a result, the radar-absorptive cladding will be installed on the critical eastern and northern elevations.

EDM Spanwall Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

502

OK's headquarters at Company House, Copenhagen, by PLH Arkitekter, stands at the end of the central pier in the southern part of Copenhagen Free port. The complex consists of a central curving building, 12 storeys high, enclosing a glass atrium, and two flanking six-storey wings. With wide views over the harbour, a great deal of the building envelope is composed of glass. Saint-Gobain's Cool-Lite KN 155 with low reflectivity and colour distortion was used along the wing buildings and for the outer skin of the atrium roof. The firm's Contrasplit glazing forms the inner one, the combination providing solar control. The triple-glazed envelope of the semi-circular block is energy efficient and is lined internally with Saint-Gobain's Parsol green insulating glass.

Saint-Gobain Tel: [phone]. Fax: [phone]

Saint-Gobain UK Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

503

The starter complex at Volkermarkt in Carinthia. Austria by Gunther Domenig (AR April 1996) is the gateway building to a new industrial zone. Its extraordinary steel and glass superstructure is cantilevered floors from concrete columns and reached by means of a staircase tower. Schuco's FW50 system has provided FW50 aluminium profile facades with projecting top hung windows, and thermally insulated mullions and transoms with a narrow 50mm face width.

Schuco Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

Schuco UK Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

504

Rheinzink's standing seam zinc roofing, including drainage and flashings, was specified for the roof of the Nationale-Nederlanden, Prague, by the architects Frank O. Gehry & Associates with Studio Vlado Milunic.

Rheinzink Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

Rheinzink UK Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

505

Flachglas supplied the structurally-glazed envelope of six-storey offices for an advertising agency in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, by Schneider + Schumacher (AR September 1996). The building was designed to be green. The north facade is a winter garden buffer zone that modifies sound and temperature inside the offices, a spectacular crystal box enclosed by roof-hung insulating and security glazing. Each glass sheet is clamped in a butt joint with its neighbour and hung on stainless-steel cables running from ground to roof level. Wind forces are taken up by steel props fixed back to the main reinforced-concrete structure. Glass panels on the roof are fixed to a steel frame; while those cladding the narrow sides are connected, by steel triangular back, to the main structure.

Flachglas Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

506

Alucobond cladding ventilated from the rear stops moisture and prevents energy loss. Ecoclad, a special system developed by Alu-Swiss, has been used to clad existing housing in tower blocks at Bochum-Wattenscheid in Germany. The system makes it possible to use conventional tools for clean exact detailing around panel joints, windows and comers, and includes individual roof edgings, fascia and balcony cladding.

Alu-Swiss Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

Alu-Swiss UK Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

507

The main grandstand looking over the camel racetrack in the heart of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, has a barrel-vaulted roof of blue Everlite, manufactured by Plastmo Profiles. Everlite is composed of triple-skinned, extruded polycarbonate tubes which are joined to form light flat or thermo-formed curved panels. Plastmo was the first company within the Danish plastics industry to get the international 9001 Quality Assurance certificate.The grandstand was designed by Fitzroy Robinson Partnership with Jan Bobrowski & Partners as consulting engineers.

Plastmo Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

Everlite Division, Plastrno Profiles, UK Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

508

In the early '90s, Pittsburgh Corning developed, with Dow Corning in the UK, a silicone bonding system for PC Glassblocks. It was first used at Stockley Park, near Heathrow, by Eric Parry, but is now marketed by the firm, with Dew Corning, as the Pittsburgh Corning Structurally Glazed Silicone Frame System. The 3mm clear silicone joints enhance the appearance of glassblock, and the structure is thermally efficient and sturdy. Silicone bonded panels have been independently tested for wind loading at Ceram Research in the UK, and have withstood testing for the effects of weather, Photograph: Martin Charles

Pittsburgh Corning Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

509

Ibstock's brickmaking dates back to the early part of the nineteenth century. Today the firm is an international brick and forest products group, selling over a billion bricks a year in Europe and North America. Using new technologies. its factories produce over 250 brick types, special shaped bricks, clay paving, terracotta and faience, industrial ceramics and architectural cast stone. Ibstock Shaws glazed bricks were specified by Campbell, Zogolovitch, Wilkinson, Gough. in their design of The Circle, a residential block in London's docklands. The bricks are frost resistant, easy to clean, light reflective, colour fast and vandal resistant.

Ibsrock Building Products Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

510

Founded in 1981, Riggarna was first involved in the marine rigging market having invented the CR4 cable stay adjuster which permitted easy adjustment under high loadings. It was followed by development of the CR4 based rigging system which broke new ground in the design of fatigue and corrosion resistant tensile structures. Today the firm's tensile systems make use of a range of materials including all standard steels, high performance bright steels and composite materials. The firm also supplies fabric based tensile structure, will design, manufacture and install glazing systems, and provides engineering services. Shown here, Riggarna's architectural system used for the glazed exterior of the Kabukicho office building in Tokyo, designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership.

Riggarna UK Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

511

Robertson's Formawall cladding system and single skin roofing sheets were used in the construction of the Toll Plaza and Control Building, which forms part of the new Severn crossing, at Rogiet, South Wales, and which was designed by the Percy Thomas Partnership. The single-storey structure is clad externally with Formawall composite panels, including special curved ones, in Sterling Silver. The panels were laid horizontally and to the full height of the building. Vogue, the firm's silver-coated louvred screen conceals mechanical and ventilating plant on the roof. The canopy spanning 13 lanes of traffic and sheltering toll booths, coin bins and traffic equipment is composed of Robertson's single skin roofing sheets with a trapezoidal profile. These, like the Formawall panels, are coated with Versacor protective coating.

H. H. Robertson UK Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

512

Gasell Profiles' strip steel roofing/cladding, called Gasell Gax, was specified by Jean Louvera for cladding the College of the Future at La Villeneuve, Grenoble. Supplied in France by Force Metal, some 16 000 square metres of the material was used in 23 metre spans with standing seam joints. The material was coated externally with Shine, a Kynar 500 based finish which incorporates metallic pigments and is iridescent. The pigments change colour with the light, in this case from blue to coppery red. Some of the Shine colours available simulate the patina of coppar and lead.

Gasell Profiles Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

513

The American firm, Construction Specialties, produces various kinds of sun control devices, including cantilevered, horizontal and vertical sunshades. fixed and mobile, and skylight shutters. Shown here, the firm's Trellis Sunshade and horizontal Demi Fins at Inventure Place in Akron, Ohio by Polshek & Partners. Standard extruded aluminium blades are generally ordered, but hollow aerofoil blades can be specified if large spans are required. There are five kinds of frames available.

Construction Specialties Tel: + 1 908 272 5200 Fax: [phone]

Construction Specialties UK Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]