5 Ideas for Building Facade Concept and Function

The Facade of the building is an essential part of a building design because the façade is the front line in delivering information from a building. With proper design, the facade can provide visitors with information about the function and what is inside the building before entering. In other cases, the façade can strengthen the meaning and concept of a building. With the selection of appropriate materials or designs, the facade can represent the purpose and purpose of the building designed. Here are some building designs with facades that can represent the function and concept of a building

Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts, By REX

Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts, Courtesy of REX

REX designed the Ronald O. Perelman Center for the Performing Arts to make the building an "anchor for the Lower Manhattan community". In its design, REX upholds the meaning of this building as a form of social aspiration. Therefore the design of the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center must be able to create a performance space that presents various experiences as a representation of "the warmth of an art."

To reinforce its concept and ambition, the building's façade was designed with the viewer's spatial experience in mind through the warmth and complexity of the interior hidden by a simple cubic marble façade. REX installed the white marble panels throughout the building's façade and combined them with the black panels at the bottom. This creative innovation created the impression of the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center building as if floating, giving visitors the impression of elegance, simplicity, and class. In addition, although the façade uses marble, the material chosen is relatively thin so that natural light will penetrate the cracks during the day. Conversely, at night, light from inside the building will radiate out. This building will look striking in the World Trade Center site because it has a different façade from most surrounding buildings using glass facades.

Louis Vuitton In Osaka, By Jun Aoki and Peter Marino

Louis Vuitton In Osaka, Courtesy of Jun Aoki

The collaboration between Jun Aoki and Louis Vuitton to build a Louis Vuitton store is undoubted because of the attractive store design with an approach adapted to the conditions and events around it. Like the Louis Vuitton In Osaka store design, Jun Aoki takes the concept from the history of Osaka city, which is famous as a cruise city. Jun Aoki envisions a bright white and airy structure inspired by the traditional cargo ship Higaki-Kaisen and steaming sails with metal frame motifs used on the ground, the project as if floating on water. Not only that, this store utilizes natural light that creates the impression of getting energy from the environment by offering visitors a sense of calm and relaxation.

Ningbo History Museum, By Amateur Architecture Studio

Ningbo History Museum, Courtesy of Dezeen

Amateur Architecture Studio designed the signature façade of Ningbo History Museum. The façade of Ningbo History Museum features a wide variety of recycled bricks and tiles, some of which are over a thousand years old. These materials took from the ruins of buildings demolished in this area. These ruins of material are combined using a traditional technique called waphan, where elements of different sizes are packed together to create a stable structure. This work was done with craftsmen to determine how to use many recycled materials in the new museum.

In this design, Wang Shu, the principal architect of Amateur Architecture Studio, believes that tradition must be lived. But, unfortunately, once put into a museum, the tradition is dead. That's why I worked with local craftsmen to keep bringing a deeper atmosphere to this museum by presenting it through the ruins of the walls. Wang also used large amounts of concrete to contrast with recycled elements, with two different materials often meeting on the same wall, using bamboo molds to make concrete meaning more than just a simple juxtaposition between old and new.

Al Bahar Towers, By Aedas

Al Bahar Towers, Courtesy of Aedas

Designed by the design team of Aedes Al Bahar Tower received special attention at that time. With extreme natural conditions, Al Bahar offers a breakthrough in secondary skin integrated with technology and mature calculations that produce efficient solutions to these natural problems. Located in Abu Dhabi, the building's façade is responsive, which takes cultural cues from the "mashrabiya", a traditional Islamic lattice shading device. Using parametrics for the geometry of the façade-driven panels, the team was able to simulate its operation in response to sun exposure and changes in the angle of occurrence during different days of the year.

The screen operates as a curtain wall, two meters outside the building's exterior on an independent frame. Each triangle is coated with fiberglass and programmed to respond to the movement of the sun as a way to reduce solar gain and glare. In the evening, all screens will be closed. For the project's sustainable engineering and sensitive cultural and urban approach, the tower was awarded the 2012 High-Rise Innovation Award by the Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.

Tel Aviv Home, By Pitsou Kedem Architects

Tel Aviv Home, Photo by Amit Geron

Designed by Pitsou Kedem Architects with triangular openings on the white aluminum façade of D3 House located on the ground floor façade, white aluminum skin with repeating graphic patterns with cut-out openings allows a glimpse into the house during the day and filters out artificial light at night.

As for the upper façade of the house, presenting an unfinished concrete façade as a counterweight to the aluminum façade design, although it looks contrasting, the design of this house produces a massive wall that is balanced in the exterior design to the inside of the house.