As every year, we highlight the latest, architecturally most exciting façade solutions and show, among other things, variants using recycled materials, exposed concrete and ceramics. We also focus on the preservation of existing buildings and present the resource-saving renovation of 1960s and 1970s façades.
Cover photo: Stijn Bollaert
Anyone who knows Baumeister knows our passion for the building envelope. Once a year, we focus on a particular aspect of the façade. Nowadays, however, the façade can no longer be viewed in isolation from its context. The interplay of our modern building envelopes with insulation, technology and the rapidly changing demands for circular and sustainable implementation often presents architects with very special challenges. For this reason, façade planners are increasingly being employed to take care of the sometimes very complex detailed planning of the design drafts.
Design is the keyword. The façade has to make a statement. A surprising and bold façade not only shapes the image of the building, but also that of an entire district. Added to this are the demands of clients and not least the architects themselves when it comes to the design of the outer shell.
In this Baumeister, we try to reconcile many of these aspects. It’s not just about the one or other new building, but very much about existing buildings and really exciting projects with beautiful and occasionally somewhat spooky façades. But they all have one thing in common: they are really courageous. We need this courage more than ever in today’s world. All the crises currently affecting us in the architecture and construction industry can otherwise quickly take your breath away.
With Baumeister, we want to focus on the positive every month and surprise you, dear readers, with exciting, new and, above all, innovative projects and implementations.
In this issue, we hope to succeed in doing just that. We present projects from Berlin, Munich, Basel and Nuremberg, among others, and show how façade elements were cleaned in a complex but completely circular manner within the building itself so that they did not have to be moved back and forth for cleaning and processing. In addition to many other topics, we also look at three-dimensional façades that play with light and façades that react to the sun in particular.
I hope you enjoy this issue. I am proud and pleased that we have been able to talk and work with so many great architects in the course of this issue. As always, please feel free to contact me with any feedback. I look forward to your encouragement, but of course also to your criticism.
The magazine is available here in the store!
Our latest issue is all about the island of Mallorca. Read more about it here!