Architecture

Glamorous black facade Corian® for Afrykarium the zoo in Wroclaw, Poland

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Glamorous black facade Corian® for Afrykarium the zoo in Wroclaw, Poland it has been modified: 2022-06-01 di Benedetto Fiori

In Poland, since the end of 2014, the Wroclaw Zoo offers the Afrykarium, an oceanarium, the first of its kind in Europe, where it is possible to admire examples of flora and fauna of the African continent.

The façade of the building that houses the Afrykarium is as new as its content: it is made with 6000 square meters of DuPontTM Corian® techno-surface, a world-renowned brand, leader in functional and aesthetic high-performance materials for architecture and design.

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The Afrykarium is able to attract up to three million visitors from all over Europe in one year. Visitors to the Afrykarium can marvel at the plants and animals that live in Africa, in the environment of the Nile, the lakes of the Great Rift Valley, the Red Sea, the Mozambique Channel, the coast of Namibia and the jungle of Congo. Inside 19 aquariums and tanks filled with about 15 million liters of water, there are in fact one hundred species of African animals.

Radoslaw Ratajszczak, president of the Wroclaw Zoo, comments, “The Afrykarium proves that it is possible to dream. I am an animal lover and I am passionate about my profession. In the space of seven years, I managed to make investments of around 300 million Polish zlotys (73 million euros) including the Afrykarium, the first oceanarium in Poland, a unique structure in the world, dedicated exclusively to African flora and fauna. "

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The new building built specifically to house the Afrykarium is 160 meters long and 54 meters wide and has a height of 15 meters. The facade features five different habitats and the life-giving waters of Africa. Its shape is reminiscent of "a large black wave that dominates the entrance," as described by architect Dorota Szlachcic of ArC2 Fabryka Projektowa, the architects behind the project. The black facade was made with DuPontTM Corian® techno-surface panels in the black shade called Nocturne.

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ArC2 Fabryka Projektowa architect Dorota Szlachcic explains: “The project originally involved the construction of a black cladding of the main building of the Afrykarium in B37 gunite mortar, 8 centimeters thick, using slabs of 15 square meters of basalt, smoothed and polished. After running a series of prototypes and developing the manufacturing technology, it was found that the grinding process alone would take over a year and a half, which is not acceptable for the zoo in close proximity to animals.

Furthermore, the physics of the building with this arrangement would have presented a series of technical difficulties originating from the lack of air spaces between concrete and wall. " "We therefore began the search for an alternative solution and the priorities were: large black panels, capable of meeting the specific needs of building physics, their behavior in contact with drinking water, their speed of achievement and long service life. In the meantime, the DuPontTM Corian® techno-surface has been certified by ITB as a material with fire resistance B-s1, d0 and this has allowed us to start the application tests on the facade and partly on the roof. " continues the architect Dorota Szlachcic.

“DuPontTM Corian® has met all these needs: beautiful, perfectly black, with a glossy surface, characterized by the possibility of making the organic cuts necessary for expansion joints, and capable of offering safety and speed of assembly. The rainwater comes out and ends up in the tanks with the animals without releasing harmful substances, a condition of fundamental importance for biologists. In addition, the air gaps allow water to evaporate from inside a building with humidity of 80 percent! " concludes the architect Dorota Szlachcic.

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An important element related to the installation of the facade concerned the calculation of the expansion of DuPontTM Corian® by 3 millimeters per meter. The structure on which the DuPontTM Corian® panels are installed had to allow some movement. Expansion joints of two centimeters were provided between the large panels measuring 5 meters by 3,6 meters.

The Polish company CCI, with great experience in the processing of DuPontTM Corian®, made its debut with this important project in the construction of a facade made with this material. The biggest challenge was the smudge-free production of huge trapezoidal panels in DuPontTM Corian®, different from each other.

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The fabrication of the roofing of the north wall of the building was also very complex: 2000 square meters of panels in DuPontTM Corian® partially curved at the height of the roof, as if to round off the corner in a semi-arch. These panels required the execution of complex molding and thermoforming solutions.

The substructure is made of galvanized steel components on which the panels in DuPont ™ Corian® are mounted. This solution made it possible to lighten the load originated from the panels (some of them weighing up to 500 kilograms) and wind. The substructure also reduces thermal movements, which can arrive at a differential 20 millimeters. The same system has been adopted in part of the building covered with curved panels. It should be remembered that these shaped panels work differently from those dishes.

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Jarek Gruszecki of Blicksystem.com, contractor of the project, says, “The whole project was a great challenge in every respect. Starting from the movement of large items, transported thanks to a special support grid, up to their final installation. By optimizing the coordination of the work, we were able to install 200 square meters of cladding every day. Given the large surface of the panels, the installation was performed only in the presence of favorable weather conditions. "

The techno-surface DuPont ™ Corian® has been worked in various ways: the panels were molded and glued, sanded and some of them were subjected to a further bending and thermoforming treatment. All these processes have been performed in accordance with DuPont's technical recommendations. Even some of the ceilings dell'Afrykarium bathrooms were made of Corian®.

To learn more about DuPont ™ Corian®, to stay in contact with Corian®: www.corian.it

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