The Contemporary Architecture with Zinc
Contemporary Architecture must be aligned with the style and demand of present time and requirement. But as stated by Filippo Brunelleschi (Father of Renaissance Architecture) “I Propose to build for the Eternity “. The Design and material which remain relevant and meaningful in all eras is the real contemporary architecture. As is The Florence Cathedral in Italy designed by Filippo Brunelleschi till date.
The Florence Cathedral- Famous for inspiring Artists, Architects and Engineers all over Europe and sparked the Italian Renaissance.
To help the architects in designing such long lasting and long relevant symbols of art and culture there comes in picture, lots of building materials and one of them is Zinc.
Zinc was relevant back in 19th Century when the Paris was modernizing itself and is relevant still, even after 100 years, adding to the beauty of the city.
Architectural Zinc is an alloy of 99.995% Zinc and rest are Titanium and copper, wherein Titanium is used to add strength in the material and copper add extra flexibility required of any architectural material.
This is an aerial image of Paris – The Arc de Triomphe is in the centre. Clearly you can see that the main colour from above is grey. That’s because most of the roofs in Paris are covered with zinc.
In Today’s world Zinc can be used in all types of buildings, be it, residential, commercial, museum, auditorium, airports, etc. Zinc can be used for facades and for roofs too. Zinc can be used by architects to design private houses to create the uniqueness of an individual house so that it can define the personality and serves the requirement of the person who owns it. On the other hand, Zinc being highly flexible material, it gives the architects to envisage the parametric designs and turn them into reality. Architectural Zinc, along with being architecturally viable material, it also fulfills today’s environmental requirements as it’s a green product and can earn LEED points for the project.
Today, the architects as well as the end users want:
Needs least or no maintenance.
Satisfy the design intent.
Value for money in long run.
Natural Zinc has very high sheen in it, but architectural zinc is processed in some pre-set colours and can further be processed to get the required colours.
So, with all the aforesaid benefits, zinc is one of the most preferred architectural material in today’s time, which goes well with all the intent and requirement of an architect for a project.
Architectural Zinc is amongst the few architectural materials which have a proven life of more than 100 years and because of its design flexibility it remains relevant to the modern times and to the future at the same time. Zinc offers silicon sealant free installation, which in turns means that there will be no sealant bleeding on the facade and your facade remains intact and free of dreadful black spots. The Zinc used in buildings, comes in roll form which makes it easier to the architects to design the facade or roof as per their requirement.
Architects can use Zinc even for minimal curvatures .
Having said that, Architectural Zinc can easily be wrapped around with a radius of 300mm and further for customized applications like bull nose edges it can be moulded to curves of radius as low as 75mm. So practically you can use in whatever way or manner you want to use it with full flexibility. Zinc can be perforated by different methods of perforation and lot many perforated designs can be created out of that, giving architects the flexibility of creating designs within a design.
Sharp Bull nose edges created out of Zinc.
Image Ref- Nine Hills Project, Pune Pic Courtesy : VMZINC
In today’s time, when clients want more out of their money, zinc has proven the perfect material for them to clad their building or to have a zinc roof, as they are getting a long durable maintenance free product which can be moulded to whatever design and shape they want.
Architectural Zinc is compatible with materials like, Aluminum, Glass, Wood, Lead, Galvanized Steel, Stainless Steel.
Image Ref: Zinc Envelope at The Alipore Auditorium Pic Courtesy :
Architects, today, search for materials which can express their thoughts, legacy and can symbolize their heritage, this search of theirs ends up well with Zinc as an architectural material. Architectural Zinc serves their purpose of creating a long lasting robust project which will be a behold of their intellectual, creative, expressive way of designing.
A company which played pivotal role in establishing zinc into the architectural industry since last 200 years is VMZINC headquartered in France and having a strong presence in India since last 10 years. In India, VMZiINC has developed a full support system in terms of In-house designing, material availability, installation training and team, customized colors. Presently, VMZINC comes in Natural Zinc, Quartz Zinc, Pigmento Brown, Pigmento Red, Pigmento Blue, Pigmento Green, Pigmento Yellow and First ever Self engraved zinc as Azengar. In addition to these colours the company can develop special colours for special orders and special quantities.
All this is possible with the help of their strong team and installation partners present at a PAN India basis. People, further interested in having in depth know how of the material can connect more to VMZINC through www.vmzinc.in
