Batlle i Roig Arquitectectura

Beyond the indisputable formal possibilities of a double skin glass facade: blurring the structural and / or functional order, giving uniformity,  vanishing the volume limits melting them with the sky, and so on; a double skin glass facade contributes little to improve thermal aspects in our climate. 

Interesting resource to hide the blind area associated with the edge of the slab, plus the facilities cavity, plus the elevated floor, without having to delimit this area with two transoms visible in the elevation. The only apparent cutting is that of the unitized panel; it is the more or lesser density in the pattern of the serigraphy that opalizes or simply veils the transparency of the glass.

Batlle and Roig designed a double skin façade for this office building in 22@. The interior layer meets the thermal requirements as well as air and water tightness, while the exterior one delimits the building volumetrically and seeks to improve its thermal behavior.

We distrust the effectiveness that the ceramic baguettes may have as sunscreen, valuing however the richness in lights and shadows that they generate. The smooth and cold surface of a glazed envelope adopts a much more Mediterranean image when having an umbraculum over it. Sky reflections, brightness and shadows.

Batlle and Roig resort in this occasion to a curtain wall where partial structures are assembled at each slab front without physical continuity between them. Glass panes are then supported over those partial structures to close the façade (have a look to "Cadireta" curtain wall structure). Each two glass panes are framed with an aluminum frame made with unitized panels profiles. Is it then a unitized façade or a curtain wall one? Maybe a mixture?