The purpose of the skin is to create a buffer zone in the façade in order to insulate better the building. This skin protects also the existing historical façade from weather and outside conditions that damage its surface. With this skin the restoration of the historical façade will be needed more rarely. The skin is curved in the first floor toward the building in order not to restrict the sidewalk circulation.

The skin doesn’t cover the whole façade surface. The entrance and also some windows each floor are free to be opened from the users of the building in order to ventilate the building naturally. 

Because of the north orientation and the disfavor placement of the building between tall skyscrapers, our building doesn’t get much direct sun light. Thus our skin panels are transparent and with no sun shading in order to collect as much diffuse light as possible. The transparent skin also allows the public community to see the historical façade.

The panels are arranged randomly to create an interesting composition with the existing façade. This unusual skin will attract the attention of the people and investors in order to revitalize this building with new functions.

Every panel is different and one way to fabricate this structure is by using CNC-technology or industry robots. Each component must be modeled as a separate adaptive component in Revit. One single mullion must be modeled as adaptive component first and then loaded in a adaptive frame family and this last family will then be loaded to a adaptive skin family which is then easily driven by the mass surfaces. Reported parameters can also be used to feed the CNC-machines or the robots with information such as the length or the angle of every single mullion and knot.