Photovoltaic Roof and Facade Claddings
The view down from Schloßberg onto the city is stunning and famous. The inner city of Graz itself is part of the UNESCO World Heritage. The vast roof landscape that spreads around the popular vantage point resembles a sea of tiles.
Kastner und Öhler is a well renowned address in Graz for over a century. The large department store, that grew over generations from a small window shop, today occupies a whole block of the old town. With the recent renovation of the compound new roofs have been built and an exciting public location was created. The new restaurant and bar on top of the building became a first-class address and the visitors hanging-out on the roof terraces enjoy their food and drinks along with spectacular views in all directions.
While the new roofs had been carefully designed to reflect the angles of the surroundings, the exclusive roofing finish — intended to cover the steel sheet weatherproofing — couldn’t be installed and the building remains unfinished. The bright shiny surfaces, never meant to remain visible, don’t blend-in particularly well with the surroundings.
A new attempt was made to cover things up in a nice way.
The company is committed to reduce the environmental impact of their stores and green energy plays a front role in that endeavour. Therefore, combining purpose with pleasure, we proposed to clad the buildings with panels composed from high-yield PV cells and atomic deposition treated glass featuring extraordinary transmission properties.
Development of a customized cladding system that allows for variation in shape, orientation and composition of the large tiles provides the means to achieve the technical and aesthetic design goals.
Roof Landscape
Renovation
PV Concept
Visual analysis
Design Proposal
Technical Solution