A playful new look for an industrial building

Main ProjectsWeinberg light reflection facade

Weinberg light reflection facade

Client: Weinberg 93 Építő Kft.

Location: Sárospatak

Completion: 2013

Architect: Csaba Livják

Awards: Építőipari Mesterdíj – Iparépületi Díj

Services: Architectural design

Sectors: Industrial building

For the expansion of the steel structure manufacturing plant of Weinberg 93 Ltd., we went beyond the established practice of facade cladding with an innovative solution. A simple geometry idea gives the building a unique look, which always shows a new face at different times of the day and from different perspectives.

Engineering ingenuity is an important element of the aesthetics of an industrial building.

The beauty of simplicity

Specific use of steel cladding system

Combining design creativity with the client’s decades of experience, we took an ordinary steel cladding system and applied it in a novel way that transformed an ordinary-looking steel plate into a surprising aesthetic effect.

“Moving” facade

The facade of the production hall was made of a single-colour, mass-produced material, but the cladding system allowed the surface to be designed with any pattern. The dynamic light and shadow effects, are the result of the particular way in which the simple steel plates are arranged.

The large glass surfaces on the north and east facades give the building a unique character.

The low angle light highlights the pattern.

The light on one plate appears as a shadow on the other. This effect is further enhanced by the use of large, “organic” patterns. As you pass by the building, the changing angle of incidence of the sun’s rays, and thus the alternation of dark and light fields, creates a kind of moving facade.

Variety of colours

In terms of colour, it’s a similar story: the modular system allows a simple blueberry blue steel sheet to appear on the building in almost any shade from light steel grey to orange to dark ocean blue, depending on the lighting conditions. An interesting feature of the system is the turning corner solution, which allows the overal pattern to be the dominant visual experience, rather than the corner edge, for both positive and negative corners.

Simple construction

With the facade cladding system developed, any pattern can be created, from lettering to large, organic patterns, to angular or barcode architecture, and perspective can be distorted by moving the horizontal division. This can be used to reduce or increase the sense of building mass as desired.

The colours of prefabricated facade panels are easy to check.

The panels are fixed manually.

The installation of the facade is accelerated thanks to prefabrication.

With unique corner elements the edges are rounded.

The facade can be made up of four types of cut elements.

Award winning design

Unique facade in traditional materials

Another great feature of the system is its cost-effectiveness. The basic material of the system is a mass-produced sheet cladding, which is made unique by a patented facade cladding and positioning system developed on behalf of Weinberg 93 Ltd. The visual experience achieved is unique, something that is only possible with custom systems that are orders of magnitude more expensive.

The professional jury awarded BuildEXT’s founding owner, Csaba Livják, with the “Master of Architecture Award – Industrial Building Award” for the development of a unique, 5000 m2 light reflecting facade cladding system of the existing industrial production hall of Weinberg 93 Ltd.