FLEXBRICK ceramic textiles
24Pages

dressing architecture National Award —Best Product 1 3th Spanish ^Biennial of ■Architecture FLEXBRICK ceramic textiles A new architectural opportunity for ceramics

This presentation introduces a new technological concept: ceramic textile, an industrialised system which takes on the shape of flexible sheets of baked clay for tiling, cladding and laminated structures with a ceramic finish. These ceramic textiles open up an endless range of possibilities for dry-assembly cladding systems in architecture. They can “dress” facades, roofs, squares, ... and explore new relations with textile architecture. Constructions in which this new ceramic textile has been used, such as drainable pavements, roof gardens, ceilings and suspended light-permeable...

From past to future Flexbrick is a new way of using an age-old material. The revolution of ceramic surfaces improving on traditional manual installation techniques Ceramic textile is an innovative industrialised system based on an interwoven steel wire mesh, which is enclosed in a mosaic of ceramic clay tiles stacked in horizontal and vertical bands. Its main advantage is that it provides us with an ancient material in a new format that improves on traditional manual piece-by-piece installation. Being highly flexible, the textile can be folded onto pallets for storage and transportation,...

Its main contribution lies in the fact that it is faster to coat any surface. It is a large format fabric that consists of small elements (bricks, cobbles, tiles), which are traditionally installed one by one and are now presented on large canvases, able to cover both floors and walls. The building performance is optimised on large surfaces, as cranes handle the long strips. In the case of facades, the great advantage, from a financial point of view, is that they require no ordinary profiles to be secured and regulated, as they are vertically aligned by their own weight, thus saving the...

Car park Saint Roc (Montpellier) ARCHIKUBIK Teresianas School (Barcelona) PICH ARQUITECTS FleXbrigJ- dressing architecture ''___ Installing a ceramic fabric facade is similar to hanging a curtain: it merely requires stainless steel rails to be attached to the ceramic fabric to sustain it. They are bolted onto support brackets, which have previously been anchored to the facing slabs. It is possible to design and construct by using large-scale formats of up to 20 meters, which saves a considerable amount of time and effort. Flexbrick offers a high degree of accuracy. Thanks to the use of a...

Flexbrick has obtained ATEX certification in France and DAU in Spain, and successfully passed several tests, including a wind tunnel. In addition to the upper supporting anchors, several retaining anchors are installed to counteract the effect of the wind and to ensure the fabric is easily fixed in place. In the case of lattices or light-permeable facades, the fabric is very light: 40 kg/m2 or less, depending on the amount of gaps between the bricks. The meshes, the support rail and the retaining anchors are made of stainless steel in order to give the cladding system a long useful life and...

(Barcelona) PICH ARQUITECTS VOOOt \ A FleXbrigJ- dressing architecture ''___ A sustainable system Light-permeable fagades; ceramics manufactured using biogas This light-permeable facade or lattice acts as a natural sunscreen and reduces solar radiation. It allows tempered interspaces on buildings. In addition, Flexbrick can easily be recycled because it only consists of two dry-woven materials, the steel mesh and the ceramic elements, which are easy to separate in order to recycle. The ceramics used in Flexbrick are manufactured using biogas extracted from landfill. This is a unique process...

Architects and designers can come up with multiple configurations of patterns that can be customised. The ceramic tiles on the meshes, like the notes on a stave, can freely be arranged with gaps in between the tiles, thus achieving a greater variety than in the case of traditional latticework built by bricklayers. Ceramic tiles display a great deal of variation: the system allows numerous configurations, such as staggered joints, openwork or mosaic. It presents a wide range of colours, shades, glazed surfaces and other materials. Personalised Design Flexbrick can be used to create patterns...

El Cobijo (La Rioja) BLUR Architecture Some architects proposed the idea of a self-managed façade: customers can change the pattern according to changing needs. For example, opening holes for windows, or turning an opaque façade into a translucent skin and vice versa. It is easy to remove or replace pieces in the holes of the mesh at the user’s convenience: users choose the level of opacity or transparency. Self-managed design Designs can change when the use changes A great number of options remain to be explored in this new paradigm of suspended façades, offering versatile possibilities in...

TR House (Barcelona) PMMT architects Continuous surfaces can be obtained by modifying less than 10% of the components and by simply changing the thickness of the ceramic pieces (5 cm-cobbles, 4,5 cmbricks or 3 cm-tiles). It can be used for paving surfaces, roofs, ceilings or façades. By modifying the diameter of the steel mesh, structural applications are possible in vaults or pergolas, which, as they are reinforced, allow the choice of any kind of curved directrix. Continuous surfaces Façades can continue on roofs or pavements Hispalyt Pavilion SARRABLO architect.

Architects can make the most of the versatility of Flexbrick ceramic tiles, as said tiles offer multiple functions. Different applications in the same building work may be provided using the same ceramic element with the same colour and the same texture. Mingo House (Barcelona) SARRABLO & COLOM architects Versatile and multifunctional applications Several applications using the same colour and texture The Mingo House is an excellent example: the same ceramic textile and the same bricks are used in the structural vaults, curved roofs, drainable pavements, prefabricated panels in the fence...