Shildan Launches Flexible Stainless Steel Framework
New Fabrik product line has been named a revolutionary architecture “textile”.
Shildan’s terracotta rainscreen and sunscreen systems have been featured on more than 300 institutional projects worldwide, in collaboration with such architects as Renzo Piano, FXFowle, and COOKFOX among countless others. These fully customizable systems—virtually in any color, shape, and size—have conquered their respective categories.
Shildan is now launching a new product during the AIA Convention 2016, which hopes to revolutionize the status quo: previously exclusive to Spain, Fabrik is a boldly innovative and category-bending architectural “textile"—hence its name.
Negating the need to lay brick and mortar or even mount individual panels to a structural plane, Fabrik affixes to a wall in massive sheets, thereby creating an instant façade or interior screen, a notion previously unimagined.
The ease of installation is a result of the flexible stainless steel framework that constitutes every Fabrik swath, or sheet. Into these expansive, prefabricated sheets, component “elements”—the essential decorative units—can be installed in virtually any geometric pattern for consummate creative freedom. The inset elements can be terracotta, glass, wood, or a variety of other materials, all fully customizable in density, color, and finish, and each offering a distinct and inimitable aesthetic suitable to any project.
Further expanding end use possibilities for Fabrik: with less than a 10 percent modification of components, this veritable architectural panacea can also be purposed for pavement, roofing, shade screens, pergolas, and more with virtually limitless constructive applications in both commercial and residential design.
Additionally, Fabrik offers these key benefits:
• sustainability | Fabrik’s production facility uses: biogas (methane) extracted from adjacent landfills; heat from its kilns to power ceramic dryers; daylight for illumination; ocean shipping (the least impactful form of freight); and regionally sourced materials. Additionally, Fabrik’s dry joint
technology allows for the convenient separation of materials, facilitating easy recycling.
• easy storage/transportation | Fabrik sheets can be folded in pallets or rolled into coils for easy storage and transportation
• easy maintenance | Because Fabrik is a mortarless system, large swaths are easily collected for repair. Additionally, a specialized “element tool” included with every order allows for the replacement of single element units rather than whole sections, saving both material and time.
• efficient construction | Application in sizable sheets and by means of a crane—rather than the traditional installation of individual facade units—significantly accelerates construction.
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