Part B Structures built with specific materials
Anyone involved in planning and building facades in compliance with generally accepted rules will at some point need to make decisions on materials. This entails making targeted use of the properties of existing construction materials and of those that may need to be developed as well as taking them into account in planning and construction. Architects face a series of guidelines, considerations, recommendations and ideas with a local or regional or sometimes even a global background that are of a functional, economic, ecological and/or cultural nature and arise out of planning and approvals law constraints, rules, standards and regulations. A facade is one subsystem in the wider system of the “building”, a large and complex technical object whose use of materials determines phases in its production in a workshop or factory, its composition of elements into structural components, and its transport, assembly and installation in both intermediate and final states. This means that a building's subsequent mainten ance and upkeep, operation and options for exchanging parts must all be well thought out in terms of the spaces, organisation and effects on structural details involved.
Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin (DE) 1995, Christo & Jeanne-Claude
A knowledge of the structural, physical and technical features of the building materials involved and of the construction, technology and manufacture of structural elements and components, taking the structure’s special characteristics and technical context into account, are among the essential skills required of architects responsible for designing buildings. The following examples are designed to provide them with guidance and orientation in their work. 63
