Fachadas ligerasun proceso hacia el límite. Diseño y construcción de fachadas ligeras. Del concepto arquitectónico y el detalle técnico a la obra construida

Resumen

For the last decades, and especially in last years, light facades have been the greatest exponent of technology and innovation in construction. While they have played the leading role in several conventional buildings, they characterize the most singular ones. The constant evolution of both the surrounding concept, which has been subdivided in increasingly better defined and differentiated layers, and the light systems and specific products for its industrialization, have enabled to answer projects with maximum technical and formal demand. The present Thesis is focused on the study of the current state and the last 30 years¿ background in Light Facades and their continuous sophistication. Experience constitutes the base upon which I will delve into the development¿s process of high-quality architectures and the fundamentals of a method which will allow to push the limits as a future trend. It is framed within the light façade typology ambit, with all its combinations from curtain walls to ventilated façades or double skin façades which can take form in the most diverse materials and combinations, being glass, metal, plastic, stone and ceramic the most usual ones, but also including the most recently developed and applied in any of their multiple formulations. Current trend is to constantly enhance the components and light enveloping systems performance, which results in an improvement of the general buildings features. Buildings projected under the concept of High Performance Buildings, will need suitable solutions for their sophisticated requirements in terms of stability, security, durability or habitability. Besides, these buildings need to be highly energetically efficient and must mix other features such as an easy industrialization, low cost or future reliability. The generalization of the use of these types of light façade has grown along with the essential rationality of technique. From the simplest, single-layered ones to the most sophisticated multiple-skinned systems. At this point, we can anticipate that the aim of this thesis is, on one hand, to deepen into the variables of design and construction of Light Facades and, on the other, to develop and rule a process which grants the enveloping systems quality, improves and optimizes existing solutions, and reduces the uncertainties when designing the new ones. The investigation on the key points of the constructive systems¿ functioning will make possible to propose both the possible ways of improvement of the existing systems and to develop new ones. Thus, the deep knowledge allows us to reflect on and to set out possible paths of progress, optimizing the conventional solutions, laying out new systems of building and planning so as to approach to the limits of what is possible and trespassing them. Hence, this process could be the base for the technological innovation of facade design and construction. Furthermore, the present paper will also demonstrate the importance of real-scale prototypes¿ construction, which constitute both the final phase of the process of architectural design and the start of the materialization process. They make possible the image validation of the solutions arranged, and they also allow verifying the viability, quality and real behavior in terms of technique, thanks to their testing in a laboratory or in the construction site. We intend to grant the coherence between the original ideas and the solutions of project stages prior to construction. This document is testimony of the activities of conception and production of architectures associated to light façade systems as a way of proving the reciprocity between architecture and industry. Finally, through several reference study cases in Spain and internationally, constitute the laboratory work of this thesis where I have been able to verify, on its experimental stage, that the constructive detail is the nexus between the sphere of ideas and that of materiality in its many permutations.