Facade Design Beyond Buildings

At the core of facade design is the concept of interdisciplinarity, a bridge between concept and materialization apt to relay a built form effectively responding to a wide and diverse spectrum of parameters and aspirations. This paper presents two case studies where a facade design approach has been successfully applied to the design and development of highly-complex artworks.

The first case study is C-010106 by Sarah Oppenheimer at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas. The major public artwork, commissioned by the University of Texas’ public art program, Landmarks, is comprised of two structural glass systems acting like periscopes to generate novel views and perspectives from both above and below the footbridge where it is installed. Along with the fabricator and the artist studio, the engineering team provided material and component research, development of the design and construction documentation, full engineering of the artwork, and oversaw the assembly and the installation of the artwork. The nature of the artwork—including structural glass designs, advanced titanium and stainless steel fittings and anchors—shared a lot of commonalities with the design process of specialty facades where the integration and cross-pollination between design and fabrication is crucial for the successful delivery of a project.

The second case study is Fallen Sky by Sarah Sze at Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, New York. Fallen Sky is the first permanent site-specific commission at Storm King Art Center in the past decade and consists of a 36-foot-diameter spherical artwork installed midway atop Museum Hill. The artwork is comprised of more than one hundred reflecting fragments arranged to provide a specific view of the sky and to engage with the surrounding nature and the visitors. The design team provided full engineering of the artwork and developed the manufacturing process—involving 3D milling, sand-casting of stainless steel, VR-aided welding, and high-resolution stainless steel mirror polishing—and the installation on-site with the fabricators. Along with this, daylight studies were also performed to study and optimize the behavior of the artwork with regards to energy concentration—the concave spherical surface of the piece effectively acts as a magnifier—as well as glare and glint.