mediafacade.net is a research group comprising design consultancies and major architectural and manufacturing companies, which aims to develop standardised state-of-the-art technology for media facades. New concepts and solutions are developed with a special emphasis on practical integration, cost of ownership, maintenance, reliability and content management. The group’s main innovations arise from its simultaneous reformulation of all of the architectural, structural and electronic components required for next-generation media facades so that display and built structure merge functionally, technically and aesthetically.
Key contributions of mediafacade.net
The development of media facade technologies that integrate seamlessly with architecture in conception, installation and lifetime is still in its infancy. While there are now many examples of ambitious projects, significant issues of resolution, brightness, maintenance expenditure and invasiveness of display systems with the building spaces located behind them, still remain. In this last respect, especially, difficulties arise because most media facades are planned after the architectural concepts – and often much of the construction itself – have been completed. In contrast, mediafacade.net considers display systems to be an integral part of architecture and the construction of such display systems to require long-life building components and materials in the same way as glazing and HVAC installations. We are developing systems solutions, which will be available to architects in the early stages of planning in order to address these problems directly, leading to media facade implementations that are fully integrated with the design and technical realisation of the building.
External projects and mediafacade.net services
In addition to design and evaluation of facade display components, the project is actively participating in Austrian building programmes and the development of design and simulation tools for current projects. We encourage enquiries from planners and practitioners internationally and will provide access to applicable interim results of the project wherever possible. mediafacade.net completes its initial phase in Summer 2008, by which time it is anticipated that products will be released by the partners and that several largescale facade projects will be active.