Creative and cost-effective cladding: the balancing act achieved

You won’t only find fruit and veg piled up in the aisles of Sainsbury’s Whitechapel store. Their car park is covered with them too - and the store exterior.

The company loves it, as do the customers, and it’s also enlivened what could have been yet another so-so supermarket.

The head-turning appearance is thanks to 119 printed tensile fabric panels: an innovative overcladding, 2,000 m2 in total, using a steel-reinforced pvc/polyester mesh tensioned onto TEXO® frames.

There you have it. The TEXO system brings the creative flexibility of fabric into an otherwise standard and somewhat staid area of construction. There simply isn’t another cladding system like it.

The creative possibilities are extensive as literally ANY exterior grade fabric can be used. For example, you can:

- Go bold on colour. Choose from 40 architectural colours such as Blackcurrant (502-2165) and Chick Yellow (502-1013) from Ferrari. Check out their Precontraint 502 range of external use membranes.
- Add graphics by printing directly onto fabric for short life exteriors of up to 5 years, which you can then rebrand to roll with the times.
- Introduce texture with different types of fabrics – mesh, solid or entirely transparent.
- Backlight it for that extra dimension and team it with different fabric translucencies depending on the effect you’re after.

But while the creative possibilities are forming in your mind, the good news is it’s not just the creative potential that makes this technology exciting. There are real cost and programme benefits too.

Using TEXO to cut costs and build time

Compared to other overcladding options such as glass, terracotta or steel mesh, tensile fabric is very competitive. And we’re not just talking about fashionable temporary facelifts – fabrics can be selected to give a 30 to 40 year life span.

As for build time, with large lightweight panels the time it takes to clad an elevation once the 1st fix rails are in place is truly impressive. On a recent project four men were installing 75m2 a day.

And with off site construction and shorter build times, quality and cost efficiency are ensured.

All in all, you might begin to appreciate just why we’re rather excited about the possibilities.

Want to know more? We’ll point you at several great examples in our next blog post. In the meantime, you’ll find lots more information and a case study on TEXO here.