28. Apr 2021

Solar protection: Metal fabric for office building in Hungary

National Instruments (NI), a US-based high-tech company with international operations, established a state-of-the-art corporate campus in the Hungarian city of Debrecen in 2002. The Service Center, which is the third building and also known as Building D, was clad with architectural mesh. CMA Architects selected 1,000 square meters of gold-anodized OMEGA 1520 metal fabric from GKD for the cladding of the new building. Offering effective solar protection, this makes a key contribution to certification with the LEED Gold sustainability label.

Debrecen is a city with some 200,000 residents that is located in the east of Hungary. The facility set up by NI, a US manufacturer of hardware and software for measurement and control equipment, marked the start of the city’s economic upturn. Since the location was established, NI has also continuously extended its campus and adapted to meet growing demands. The latest office building of the international company serves as a Service Center for the Legal and IT department, as well as for its Customer Service operations. The four-story construction boasts around 6,000 square meters, offering space for 250 of the company’s 1,500 employees. Sustainability was the top priority during planning and construction of the building. As such, the building’s energy, water, and power consumption were all minimized through use of the latest technologies. As effective solar protection, the metal fabric from GKD makes a key contribution to reducing power consumption. Panels produced from OMEGA 1520 architectural mesh and measuring up to 13 meters in height with gold-anodized aluminum weft were attached using clevis fasteners. The large-scale cladding of the glazed front reduces solar input, which in turn prevents the rooms from heating up excessively. At the same time, the unrestricted outward views contribute to a sense of well-being for the employees that have their workplace in the building. The light transmission of the fabric with an open area of 51 percent allows use of daylight and thereby reduces the need for electric lighting – all aspects that were taken into account during the process for certifying the building to the LEED Gold standard.