Cladding: Skylights, Facades and Other Building Envelopes

Cladding is more than just a protective skin on the exterior of a building. With the right design and construction, it can add a breathtaking architectural element to a structure. For instance, glass cladding not only lets the outdoors in but can do so in striking ways that are far from predictable. Opaque, textured or clear features on a wall or ceiling can infuse a space with nature, art, or both.

Skylights are widely used to admit steady, even light into industrial, commercial, or institutional buildings.  Installations range from purely functional daylighting for energy efficiency to elaborate aesthetic forms with breathtaking design.

Cladding can be tinted or transparent, even for an unconventional shape. Geometrica’s structural system frames free-forms with lightweight, corrosion-resistant galvanized steel or aluminum tubes that are connected via patented aluminum hubs. Strong in both tension and compression, the structure can be shaped into combinations of curvature and inverse curvature within a single gridshell.

Many design softwares enable architects to create free-flowing forms for landmark buildings.

Often the complex curvature of a structure is likened to art and described with nuanced monikers such as “anticlastic,” “minimal,” “inverse curvature,” and “hyperbolic parabola.”

Internal and external surfaces of buildings, shopping centers, houses of worship, libraries, museums and community centers can be designed to follow unpredictable forms. These unpredictable forms often become cultural icons.  An entire building may be so beautifully unpredictable that the entire structure is ultimately considered a work of art.