Development of a multi-functional building cladding made of surface-refined bricks

»1 Surface-refined clay brick façade on a rotunda entrance hall, after a 15-year service and observation period. The façade shows a very good state of conservation

»2 Building project “Institute for the Handicapped in Linz” by Prof. F. Goffitzer

$»3 The cross-section of the extruded product consists of two clay façade slabs, which are separated after firing and each contain a 55% perforation fraction$

»3 The cross-section of the extruded product consists of two clay façade slabs, which are separated after firing and each contain a 55% perforation fraction

»4 Cross-section presentation of a corner slab before separation of the supporting body (die exit planning)

»5 Façade clay bricks in natural red brick colour, cut to length by calibration. With the calibration a joint obstruction of the horizontal bed joints is achieved, while the vertical joint obstructions are already formed in shaping by a tongue and groove construction

»6 Façade clay brick surface-refined by means of a glaze

»7 Work study from the glaze laboratory of the Art University Linz: rustic structural glazes on light clinker clay for property façades

»8 View of the entire cladding cross-section (Fig. 5), the drill-free holding construction with clamp plate security device (Fig. 7, Fig. 8) and the holding clip of stainless steel and alloy (Cr-Ni 14401 according to DIN 17440) (Fig. 1, Fig. 4)

»9 Another fastening possibility is the multiple clip retention in the butt joint and bed joint area, according to the piercer principle for ceramic solid slab claddings on aluminium substructure of alloy (AlMgSi 0,5 F25 according to DIN 1725)

»10 Test arrangement of the entire cladding system in the large wind tunnel. Impact airflow from diffe-rent flow directions in the open jet of a venturi tube with wind speeds on the structure of over 150 km/h

»11 Substructure made of prefabricated galvanized steel profiles for fast, drill-free final assembly, provided with sufficiently dimensioned thermal insulation and rear ventilation keeping the system dry, on stainless steel Halfen rail short pieces with stainless steel Halfen screws, set into the masonry

»12 Simple and fast covering of the bearing construction with glazed clay bricks and fastening of these with holding clips in the entrance area of the rotunda. The holding clips are designed so that they also take up the next row of bricks in spring form and help to bear them. The final fixation is then taken over by the two upper newly applied holding clips. A small rubber hammer is sufficient for assembly

»13 Development of the façade corner before inser-tion of the worked final brick on the main building. The most appropriate solution is the automatic provision of ½ and ¼ width glazed bricks from the same production batches for each building order

»14 View of a pipe or tube collector in a façade clinker cladding brick with two forward rising pipes and two return descending pipes each,
in a 3D computer simulation

A new protective building façade was planned for a special building project, the Institute for the Handicapped in Linz. In addition to long durability and a representative façade design, the economic aspects of the best possible building protection, easy care and an extensive use of solar energy for warm water preparation and for partial heating of the building also had to be taken into account. This report describes the development and testing of the brick façade.

1 Introduction

The project was realized jointly with the University for Artistic and Industrial Design Linz, the two Institutes for Architecture and Art Ceramics, who are both contractually responsible for the planning, execution, and interior design of the entire building project. Responsible for the product development of the surface-refined brick clay façade and the system construction of the external wall protective cladding, which had to be optimized both in terms of building technology and building physics, was the Ingenieurbüro RAT. Testing investigations, including structural stability,...