Architect: Allmannwappner, Menges Scheffler Architekten
Location:Reutlingen, Germany
Completion Date: 2023
German corporations Allmannwappner and Menges Scheffler Architekten collaborated to design Texoversum, a brand new facility for Reutlingen College of Utilized Sciences’ Faculty of Textiles & Design. The brand new constructing is an element of a bigger growth masterplan for the College. The facade of the constructing was knowledgeable by woven textiles and contains a cladding patterned by carbon and glass fiber tiles.
Taking inspiration from its program, the research of textiles, the constructing’s exterior cladding consists of carbon and glass fiber tiles that have been wound utilizing robotic coreless filament winding, a producing course of created on the close by College of Stuttgart. The carbon and glass filaments are set between two rotating windwing scaffolds by a robotic. Every of the tiles elements was assembled in keeping with 5 pre-determined templates. Carbon and glass fiber have been chosen for his or her resistance to the extremities of German winter.
Menges elaborated, “Throughout this course of, the predefined form of the constructing element emerges solely from the interplay of the filaments, eliminating the necessity for any mould or core. This enables for bespoke kind and particular person fibre layup for every element with none financial drawback. As well as, there isn’t any manufacturing waste or materials cut-offs.”
First, a lattice of white glass fibers is assembled. The black carbon fibers are positioned to offer structural integrity, whereas concurrently creating a definite sample within the weaving. The woven facade system was devised and produced by FibR, an organization that emerged from analysis initiatives on the College of Stuttgart.
The facade was put in with cherry pickers and was expedited as a result of fiber models’ relative gentle weight—lower than 60 kilos. The tiles are self supporting, eliminating the necessity for a load bearing body. Moreover, the material cladding system acts as a structural balustrade supporting the constructing’s balconies.
Jan Knippers of Jan Knippers Inegnieure informed AN, “We had already efficiently constructed a number of analysis demonstrators earlier than, however for the everlasting constructing Texoversum we needed to meet the complete necessities of the German constructing authorities for the primary time. For this intensive assessments needed to be carried out to show the long-term creep conduct, climate resistance, hearth resistance and others. Throughout this course of, we needed to repeatedly alter the resin formulation.”
The design of the facade system was laptop aided, necessitating shut collaboration between the architects and engineering consultants to combine structural engineering and constructing physics into the digital fashions.
Central openings have been included within the tile design to offer curated views throughout the construction. The openings have been optimized for visibility at occupant eye degree—whether or not sitting or standing. Fiber density throughout the lined parts of the tiles have been topic to intensive testing and modeling to attain shading necessities. Nook rooms are uncovered to essentially the most daylight, as small openings and excessive fiber density have been concentrated to the corners of the constructing.
The inside of Texoversum is organized in a split-level structure. Staggered at half-level intervals, the offset tales are divided by a central atrium. Walled with concrete of various finishes and ceilings that includes uncovered ductwork, the inside achieves an industrial look. The 32,000 sq. foot constructing accommodates house for workshops, laboratories, and lecture rooms, in addition to a set of historic textile and cloth samples.
The impartial shade palette of the inside is periodically interrupted by pops of shade in cut-out areas which offer a tiered seating space and reference French Gobelin tapestries. These tapestries are notable, amongst different causes, for his or her skilled use of shade gradation to attain sensible panorama, determine, and bodily depictions.
The constructing was donated to the College of Reutlingen by Sudwesttextil, a textile commerce federation situated in Southwest Germany.
