Advanced façade technologies Josef Gartner

ADVANCED FAÇADE TECHNOLOGIES

Headquartered in Gundelfingen, Germany, Josef Gartner designs and manufactures innovative, custom-made building envelopes in aluminium and steel. Since 2001 it has been a part of the Italian Permasteelisa Group – the world’s largest curtain wall manufacturer.

Josef Gartner was established in 1968 as a small steel workshop in Gundelfingen/ Donau. Over the years it has expanded internationally throughout Europe, Asia and North America. Today the company employs more than 1200 people at its German headquarters and in its main subsidiaries in the UK, Switzerland, the USA, the Russian Federation and Hong Kong.

To complement its complex and innovative building façades, the company offers a full range of in-house services to ensure that it develops the best possible solutions for its clients. These include early consulting and planning, technical research and development, design and engineering, project management, performance testing, aluminium and steel production, logistics, installation and after-sales services.

Production profile

Josef Gartner’s products include a variety of façades as well as steel roofs, all of which can be modified to meet clients’ needs. Its aluminium single skin façades, or curtain walls, can be built as stick systems or be fully unitised. The company specialises in all kinds of custom-made fully unitised systems, whether for extra-large sizes or in complex 3D geometries. It also offers double skin façades which can create a natural internal climate with the highest possible visual and thermal comfort. This is achieved through a number of means, such as natural ventilation through operable windows at the inner skin, or an air corridor situated

between the inner and outer skin to provide permanent or controlled ventilation.

Closed cavity façades (CCFs) are a unique sustainable solution, developed by Gartner for those that want higher thermal and sound insulation that uses less time and effort to maintain or repair. The CCF comprises an innovative closed, non-ventilated, double skin system. Adapting to the individual climatic conditions at the building site, a nozzle steadily feeds clean dry air into the closed curtain wall cavity, thus allowing pressure release and preventing condensation.

Steel façades meet the demand for maximum transparency in steel–glass structures. Josef Gartner’s precisely fabricated steel components allow for the direct fixing of the glass units to the steel structure, avoiding secondary aluminium frameworks. Integrated steel façades, which the company has been manufacturing since 1968, offer all the above benefits. With these, however, in addition to supporting the glass, the framework is flown by water and serves as a heating and cooling surface. This means that radiators and, to some extent, air conditioning systems are unnecessary. Lastly, the company’s filigree steel facades are designed to achieve the maximum possible level of transparency.

In addition to all the above structures, Josef Gartner provides its clients with steel roofs to meet the increasing requests for transparent roof constructions. These are particularly widely used for buildings such as airports, exhibition halls, convention centres and museums. Major project

Josef Gartner has been contracted for some very high-profile projects in recent years, resulting in some unique structures. This year it completed the ELB Philharmonie in Hamburg, Germany. This glass construction rests on an existing trapezoidal quayside warehouse in the Hamburg harbour, standing 102 metres above the ground floor.

The company manufactured six façade elements for the building loggia, each of which has been created in the shape of a large tuning fork. The six elements, each weighing around two tonnes, measure almost seven metres wide and five metres high. Each unique element consists of three spherically curved glass panes and glass fibre reinforced plastic (GRP) elements. This

is actually the first example of GRP technology being used in such a façade.

The six façade elements include one with spherically curved double glazed units, a unitised curtain wall system and plaza facades. It covers an area of 21,500m2, of which around 16,000m2 is the main façade, around 2000m2 is void facades and around 3500m2 consists of plaza facades. The main façade covers the building exterior from the 9th to the 26th floor.

Another ground-breaking project for Josef Gartner was the 31,000m2 façade in the heart of London adjacent to St Paul’s Cathedral and the Bank of England. Unlike standard glass constructions, this special glass façade does not reflect light or mirror its neighbouring buildings. The glazing involved ranges from clear to opaque and provides 300 different printed patterns in 24 contrasting colours. As a result, the complex, known as ‘One New Change’, has the appearance of a chameleon whose glass skin takes on various colours and designs and communicates in a unique manner.

This unusual facade gives the impression of a huge glass surface as the construction only has small joints and even the transition from the steel to the aluminium facade is not visible from the outside. Furthermore, the facade is not supported by pressure beads and distinguishes itself with several unique 3D elements. All the profile surfaces have a

three-layer coating of ‘RAL 7040 top-layer’. On the ground floor the facade has been glazed with laminated safety glass with a thickness of 2 x 10 mm.

Green innovation

The company’s R&D efforts are focused predominantly on developing more sustainable building façades. Its aim is to meet the highest architectural demands of its high-profile projects yet be energy efficient at the same time. An example of this focus on sustainability is its development of the above-mentioned energy-saving and low-maintenance CCF façade. To meet increasingly sophisticated architectural demands it also uses new and innovative materials such as glass-fibre reinforced polymers for free-form geometries, to achieve special effects as well as make the most efficient use of daylight.

The Roche Diagnostics centre project in Switzerland is an example of Gartner’s ability to combine sustainability with sophistication. It fitted the building out with a highly efficient CCF façade. The building is around 68m high with an oversized ground floor and 15 upper floors. V-shaped concrete columns are located directly behind the external envelope, forming a four-storey diamond structure over the full height of the building. n