73 | Futurity
The Spherical Mirror Façade An Article by Sorba
The new art depot for museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is going to be the new landmark in the city of Rotterdam. The building is designed by Winy Maas of MVRDV Architects and is meant to blend in with its surroundings. The façade is made out of double curved glass panels with a mirror coating and expected to be completed this year. Introduction The design of MVRDV included the completely reflecting spherical façade. In this scheme Sorba develops the façade for main contractor BAM Bouw en Techniek. To build this façade Sorba uses double curved mirror glass panels. Through the use of glass, the mirror effect will be crystal clear. The radius of the art depot differs on ground level and at the roof. At ground level the radius is only 40 meters, and at the roof this extends to 60 meters. The façade counts 26 rows of panels with 64 panels per row. This leads to a total of 1664 3D curved panels. The glass panels are produced in China and each row has a different curvature in the glass.
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The spherical and reflective façade is the greatest feature of this new development. Sorba has been awarded with the special task to develop, engineer, Figure 1. Overview of the art depot with the reflection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
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produce and install this unique façade.
