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Ugly Building? Wrap On A New Facade

Posted by: Nate Berg

13 February 2010 - 9:00am

Outdated or ugly building blighting your skyline? Maybe what it needs is a "facade graft".

A group of architects in Australia have proposed a flexible, media-intelligent textile that can be wrapped around buildings to create a newer, more visually appealing facade.

"The 'Tower Skin' concept is a transparent cocoon made of high performance composite mesh textile that is wrapped around an existing structure to act as a high-performance 'micro climate'. Surface tension allows the membrane to freely stretch around walls and roof elements achieving maximum visual impact with minimal material effort. The skin is also easily repairable, is removable and upgradable and features a self-cleaning coating."

Full Story: Using a skin graft to give city eyesores an eco-friendly face-lift
Source: Gizmag, February 12, 2010
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This isn't a new idea

Submitted by CoreyBurger on Sun, 02/14/2010 - 16:03.

They tried it in the 1970s and all we got were some lovely turn of the century and earlier buildings covered in stucco and hideous ornamentation.

Entire buildings as digital billboards?

Submitted by mmc2068 on Sat, 02/13/2010 - 19:14.

This display-capable material sounds like an excuse to turn entire buildings into giant digital billboards.

Worse, nighttime would no longer exist in any tangible way, energy requirements would soar and we'd never escape outdoor advertising.

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