Cable-stayed glass façades - 15 years of innovation at the cutting edge

Abstract

Today’s demand for highly transparent building envelopes calls for innovative solutions. Cable-stayed glass façades make it possible to dematerialize the building envelope so as to make it almost imperceptible. Werner Sobek has designed a great number and variety of cable-stayed façades. The primary structural system carrying most of these façades consists of straight tension members (e.g. tension rods, cables), typically in a parallel arrangement. The tension members transfer the dead load of the glazing very efficiently to the supports. Under wind load the members undergo large deflections thus activating their lateral stiffness. As a result, the detailing of these façades requires innovative design approaches and special care to allow for such large deflections. Besides this, each project has its individual challenges such as a complex geometry, large openings, difficult edge conditions, warping of IG units, bomb blast requirements, etc. The present article gives an overview of the development of cable-stayed façades as designed by Werner Sobek over the last 15 years. The overview includes completed projects as well as façades currently under construction or in the design phase.