The use of textured formliners opens up architects and planners to unlimited possibilities in façade design. They can mimic other building materials or realize unique ideas without breaking the bank.
Normal or outstanding? How a building is perceived mostly depends on its façade. The use of elastic structure formliners by RECKLI can significantly contribute to the outside of a building having an ‘aha’ effect. With the help of a formliner, any design – whether inspired by nature or designed on a computer- can be made into a façade.
The choice of formliner depends on what kind of story should be told. For a residential house along the former course of the Wall, Berlin architecture firm Zanderroth Architekten chose a continuous band of visible concrete and a formliner with a horizontal bamboo design. This natural touch brings life to an otherwise densely built urban area, and strengthens the intended design of the façade.
When it came to the Kulm mountain station in Switzerland, the intention was to make the new panorama gallery fit into its surroundings. The single-storey building is nestled into the rock, and connects the hotels with the mountain station. The architects at the Graber Steiger firm chose an irregular rock pattern with a continuous green-blue band of windows that resembles a rocky outcrop, strengthening the natural impression of the design.
Sometimes, a façade is not intended to quote nature at all, rather to signal modernity. When rebuilding the Roombeek area of the Dutch city of Enschede, Rem Koolhaas and the Dutch firm seARCH turned an old warehouse into a modern exhibition building. The Jan Cremer Museum shows works by the Dutch painter and writer Jan Cremer, as well as young artists. For the façade design, RECKLI developed a new formliner to bring the cover of Cremer’s first novel to the façade three dimensionally. This effect was made possible by a computer-supported process, whereby images are read and turned into three dimensional data.
A similar model allows the reproduction of photos on the façade. In Montreal, architects from the Kanva firm used photo engraving formliners to show sequences from historic film footage on the façade of student accommodation in a homage to the city’s history.
RECKLI formliners can even realize individual design ideas. Collector and architect Sergei Tchoban wanted a façade for the Museum of Architecture Drawing he founded in Berlin, which made the purpose of the building immediately clear. Historic architecture drawings were the basis for the individual formliners used to create this unusual façade.
Alongside design freedom, RECKLI formliners also have plenty of practical benefits: They’re easy to work with, can be used on site or in the precast plant, and can be used again and again. Depending on the model, formliners can be used 10, 50 or even 100 times, making them very economical. You can also register façades designed with formliners as art on the building.