Partially integrated solar shading for façades

When designing buildings, architects and planners regularly find themselves in a field of tension: their concepts should meet architectural requirements and create the desired looks, but at the same time be highly functional. This challenge also comes into play when planning curtain walls equipped with sun protection.

heroal has developed the versatile heroal C 50 curtain wall system to create generously planned curtain walls. Made of high-quality, robust aluminium and equipped with components such as foam-filled insulators or continuous seals, heroal C 50 stands out for its durability, efficient fabrication and thermal efficiency achieving values of up to U_f = 1.2 W/m²K. In addition, perfect ventilation and drainage are ensured by a sophisticated design that is invisibly integrated into the curtain wall profiles.

To protect interiors from overheating despite large glass curtain walls, heroal offers the external heroal VS Z CS zip screen system which ensures effective sun and heat protection. Thanks to the stable zip technology, the system also offer certified ball impact resistance - even for shading areas up to 6 m wide and 18 m² big. heroal VS Z CS provides for a seamless partial integration of the sun protection into the heroal C 50 aluminium curtain wall system, as well as post-transom curtain walls from other manufacturers. The newly developed integration profile for the heroal GR 25 guide rail is inserted into the curtain wall system using a sun protection bolt which has also been recently designed. In contrast to classic curtain wall integration with traverses, the heroal VS Z sun protection system is installed particularly close to the curtain wall element. This ensures high wind stability of up to 145 km/h, as the wind can hardly reach behind the sun protection. At the same time, a particularly unobtrusive integration of the sun protection system is achieved: When the heroal VS Z sun protection system is fully retracted, it cannot be seen that the curtain wall profiles are fitted with sun protection. Even when lowered, the new solution is particularly aesthetically appealing, because with a face width of 25 mm each, the use of two heroal GR 25 guide rails results in exactly the same face width of 50 mm as the heroal C 50 curtain wall system. As the heroal GR 25 can be installed over the entire length of the curtain wall profile, the partly integrated heroal VS Z CS can even shade curtain walls up to 5 m high.

In contrast to similar systems, the heroal C 50 curtain wall system has a high degree of prefabrication with pre-punching and pre-drilling as well as sophisticated design details. This makes its manufacture fast and efficient. The heroal C 50 is already fitted with the integration profile during fabrication at the metalworking company, so that the building curtain wall can also be retrofitted with the heroal VS Z CS sun protection system at a later date, if required. In addition, this allows the curtain wall builder and sun protection installer to work independently of each other, which increases flexibility during the course of the project. There is also no need for separate structural calculations.

If several sun protection elements are installed next to each other on the curtain wall, the heroal VS Z CS shows its outstanding advantages during installation: Each individual element can be perfectly adjusted to the curtain wall, thanks to the integrated side and depth adjust-ment range, as the sun protection can be adjusted three-dimensionally and absorbs or compensates for construction tolerances.

heroal offers a wide variety of design options for its system solutions, providing for building shells that appear to be cast from the same mould. The aluminium components of heroal C 50, heroal VS Z CS and all other systems used, such as windows or doors, are all coated with the highly weather-resistant heroal hwr powder coating. This ensures perfect colour uniformity. The heroal hwr powder coating is available in RAL colours as well as in the exclusive Les Couleurs^® Le Corbusier colours. Stunning looks (e.g. wood, concrete, rust) can also be created with the heroal SD coating process. More than 250 standard textiles with different degrees of light transmission are available for the partly integrated heroal VS Z CS sun protection system.

With heroal, projects can be managed efficiently, as all the necessary information is provided by a single point of contact. This considerably simplifies and accelerates planning and tendering processes and at the same time increases planning reliability. In addition, heroal aluminium system solutions can be integrated and combined with each other in a particularly harmonious way. This creates energy-efficient, sustainable and liveable buildings in which the big picture is considered without neglecting the important technical details.