Breathing Facade Skin Made of Covestro’s Transparent Solid Polycarbonate Sheets

The idea behind the seminal Breathing Skins showroom is to use the outer envelope of buildings to variably adapt the indoor climate to the needs of the occupants. The project centers around a breathing facade skin using transparent solid sheets of the polycarbonate Makrolon®. This is modeled on a natural, organic skin. 
Covestro recently won the innovation award of the European Polycarbonate Sheet Extruders Organization (EPSE) for this development. It was the eighth time the organization had held the Best Polycarbonate Projects Competition to recognize outstanding applications with polycarbonate sheets. 
Controllable Permeability:
Tobias Becker’s proprietary development makes it possible to infinitely vary the permeability of facades and thus adapt the indoor climate to the user’s specific requirements. Germany’s Federal Minister for the Environment Barbara Hendricks and Maria Krautzberger, president of the German Federal Environment Agency, have now presented Tobias Becker with the Federal Ecodesign Award in the Young Talent category. 
The inspiration for developing a breathing facade skin comes from the idea of ventilating an interior via pore-like air ducts without creating a draft.
These ducts can be sealed pneumatically so as to be airtight by applying a small overpressure to the facade element. 
A low-energy compressor controls around 140 pneumatic “muscles” per square meter without any visible technology. 
Applying a small under pressure widens the reversible air ducts fitted between two perforated, transparent polycarbonate (PC) solid sheets of Makrolon® GP clear 099 polycarbonate from Covestro. 
The sandwich design weighs less than eleven kilograms per square meter. 
The showroom is a prototype for testing breathing skins facade technology and experiencing it at an emotional level. The organic-like facade skin and the soft, meandering form of the Breathing Skins showroom complement each other perfectly. Geometrically speaking, the facade is made up of six arcs with different radii. The solid sheets’ good thermoforming properties produced excellent results.
The facade is over ten meters long, has an area of 25 square meters and is split into several elements.
To reinforce the image of a continuous facade, the load-bearing parts of the sandwich facade elements are all made of solid polycarbonate sheets. 
The interior has an area of eight square meters and a clear height of 2.4 meters.
A wooden structure with edges 4.5 by 4.5 meters long marks the vertical limit of the interior. 
The ceiling panel rests on four round, recessed larch supports mounted outside the interior. 
The modular components are so small and light that each of them can be carried by two people. 

The more the pneumatic muscles dilate, the more the facade’s appearance changes. Permeability for light and air as well as see-through visibility can be modified locally and gradually. The concept is based on biomimetics, the basic idea of which is to observe nature closely and turn the findings into technical applications.

Breathing Skins Showroom:
The laminated birch surfaces make you want to touch them, and create a warm effect that provides an excellent contrast to the plastic facade.
More Than Just Transparent Glazing:
The showroom demonstrates that polycarbonate sheets can be used for more than just transparent glazing in architectural applications. Their mechanical properties and the fact that they are milled during the machining process enable easy integration of controllable elements such as the pneumatic muscles. Transparent facades of all building typologies thus become a tool for controlling energy management and interior climate.
Source: Covestro


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