Why specify that ?

A. Because it's rough and reflective

Resembling a pile of huge white sugar lumps, the New Museum of Contemporary Art brings a touch of class to New York’s gritty and run-down Lower East Side, the Bowery.

Japanese architects SANAA chose London-based James & Taylor’s Expanded Aluminium Veil (EAV) system to create the building’s unique silvery appearance. ‘EAV is a bit rough, just like the Bowery. It’s textural in appearance, but is actually smooth to the touch, and it is reflective in a way that abstracts its surroundings and suggests a different way of seeing them,’ said a spokesman for SANAA.

‘In a way, this cladding has a very nice, direct relationship to the Bowery – look at all the stainless steel refrigerators, sinks, pots and pans, and restaurant equipment for sale along the street!’

This is the first time the material has been used in the US, although it featured on various UK projects including the high-profile Stephen Lawrence Centre in south-east London.

www.jamesandtaylor.co.uk

B. Because it's light and recyclable

Valued at £260m, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg’s new European Court of Justice complex (ECJ) is the most expensive construction project in the country’s history.

Apart from an extension to the original Palais de Justice, it will include two 24-storey-high golden monolith-shaped towers designed to house translators and legal linguists.

Metal weaver GKD – Gebr. Kufferath supplied the golden mesh for the principal courtroom’s impressive tent-like ceiling, plus metal mesh cladding for the two towers. According to French architect Dominique Perrault, he specified the tower mesh because of its zigzag edging, which allowed him to create an apparently seamless façade and accentuated lighting.

As a light mesh was required, GKD modified its Alutherm mesh 6010 to incorporate three wire diameters, giving a weight of just 2.6kg/m². A total 20,190m2 of gold-coloured anodized mesh was supplied for the 7,724 aluminum panels, each of which was installed between two window panes.

www.gkd.eu

C. Because it warps reality

Designed to reflect the flourishing cultural and social life of the city of Lelystad in the Netherlands, the Agora Theatre is a kaleidoscope of juxtaposed geometries.

Its façade comprises 7.8 tonnes of coil-coated aluminium cladding, which turns yellow and then orange depending on the viewing angle and incidence of light. The effects are achieved through special folds in the Reynolux Building aluminium sheets, supplied by Alcoa Architectural Products and processed by Corus Building Systems to create a special Kalzip profile for a resilient shell.

‘Just like one of the theatre’s audience, a viewer is never certain of what is real and what is not,’ writes lead architect Bernd van Berkel of the unusual structure. Crikey!

www.alcoa.com

D. Because of sound, heat and movement

Large panes of glass, some up to almost 8m2 and weighing 580kg, are being installed alongside cladding for the first phase of the 21-storey Islington Wharf tower in Manchester.

Thermal and acoustic performance and movement considerations were vital to the design of the sandstone and copper tower, which will house 200 apartments, two leisure units and five smaller commercial units and sits on a three-acre site next to the New Islington Millennium Community site.

SG Aluminium is installing Kawneer AA100 dry-jointed curtain wall shards for main contractor Laing O’Rourke. The shards project into the sky and hang from the structure by specially designed brackets to accommodate excessive building movement. The final bolt on the 20th floor was driven home in November and phase one will be completed soon.

www.kawneer.com

E. Because yellow is so you

When prominent southern self-storage brand Big Yellow embarked on a plan to expand its presence to the whole of Britain, the visibility of its warehouses was key.

That’s why architects Mountford Pigott Associates specified bright yellow Euroclad-profiled cladding to provide an aesthetically pleasing, sustainable solution that would also allow contractors to quickly erect a weatherproof shell for interior works to begin. Stores in Kingston, Edmonton, Bristol, London, Sutton, Tunbridge Wells and Gloucester have been completed and over 381,097m2 of space will be available when the work is finished.

www.euroclad.com