The panels were assembled in a former production hall on the Novartis Campus.
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Organic solar panelsInnovative flexibilityDiscreet lightPublished on 26/05/2022
Beat Grossniklaus leans over one of the 10000 or so panels that will soon adorn the roof of the Novartis Pavillon. The experienced foreman of the Basel-based technology company iart screws one of the rhomboid panels onto a specially developed steel framework that mimics the idiosyncratic shape of the Pavillon.
Each individual panel, as well as the steel structure on which the individual elements are attached, is tailored to the shape of the curved roof. In future, it will not only guarantee that the building is supplied with electricity, but will also communicate with the city. The panels have a dual function: They produce electricity, and the LED lights screwed onto each of them will be used for discreet light displays.
“The panels are an innovation that iart developed especially for the Novartis Pavillon,” says Grossniklaus, who is carrying out the work with his colleagues in a spacious warehouse on Campus. “There is no such media façade anywhere else in the world – it’s actually an experiment.”
Media mesh
The network, which iart refers to as a media mesh, consists of a complex load-bearing steel structure, organic photovoltaic (OPV) panels and LED units that only consume as much electricity as the solar panels produce – a so-called zero-energy media façade.
The panels are integrated into the steel structure, which has been specially developed for this project. The structure holds the elements in place at a distance of around 40 centimeters from the actual sheet metal roof, which also serves as a reflective surface for the artificial light. The construction integrates the necessary cabling through which electricity and signals flow, connecting all the LEDs so they can be used by artists for future lighting animations.
Reto Weljatschek, the industrial designer responsible for the project at iart, designed the media façade: “At first, it was about fundamental questions: How many of the freely shapeable OPV elements should be accommodated on each façade section, or how many LEDs are needed to be able to display text in the lower section? And what are the best proportions for the 480 large rhombus elements that currently carry a total of over 10000 OPV cells?”
Weljatschek developed five different rhombic shapes for different positions on the curved building shell. They in turn consist of 102 different tubular elements and are held together by 30 different node types. All of these elements were bolted, so that they could be handled during flexible pre-assembly, assembly and operation.
The ultimately homogeneous second skin of the Pavillon thus consists of numerous custom-fit individual parts, which were specially developed by iart. The load-bearing steel frame, says Weljatschek, consists of “a whole family of mesh elements.”
For installation on the façade, the larger mesh elements, which are made up of 16 panels each, are pre-assembled, tested and then hoisted onto the roof by crane, where they are mounted by a team of specialists.
When designing the panels, the iart development team drew inspiration from cell structures: “The idea was to see the Pavillon as an organism, which should be reflected both in its shape and in the light displays that are shown there later,” explains Christian Reimann, who is managing the project on behalf of iart.
