Building energy management through fabric shading
InBev need little introduction as the world’s largest brewer. Their headquarters are located in the heart of Leuven, a site which has housed a brewery for six centuries. The InBev headquarters were built in 2005, receiving the Belgian Building Award in 2006.
Heat and light control were central to the design criteria for the building. Both interior and exterior fabric shading systems were integrated into the designs at an early stage, offering ultimate flexibility and control when it comes to energy management and solar heat.
Helioscreen Projects chose Guthrie Douglas’ TESS™ 140 system for its discrete stainless steel wire guides and high wind resistance. A replica system was built and tested for wind resistance over ten thousand cycles at the GD factory in the UK, and the results reported to the end client for system sign-off.
The interior included sloped parallelogram shaped windows in the restaurant area. Guthrie Douglas’ engineers designed a bespoke zip tension system to follow the glazing mullions and maximise the internal floor plate, hiding the system mechanism within the ceiling void.
The end result is a fully integrated shading solution which meets both performance requirements and aesthetic expectations.
We relish the challenge of meeting unusual design requirements as well as performance objectives. Read about our work on a project in the UAE which had a comprehensive sustainability strategy at its heart.
