Crocker Park

Company:
Structurflex LLC Kansas City, MO

Project Details

Fabric 1

Soltis
Producer: Serge Ferrari North America Inc.

Engineer Company 1
Structurflex

Architect Company
Bialosky + Partners

Fabrication Company
Structurflex

Subcontractor Company
Structurflex

Graphics Company
Structurflex

Installation Company
Structurflex

Please describe the project specifications

Crocker Park is a lifestyle center and mixed-use development in a suburb of Cleveland in Westlake, Ohio. The center comprises 1.2 million square feet of retail, 650 residential units, and 1 million square feet of office space. The $200 million project development features restaurants, retailers, residential, entertainment and office spaces.

We became a part of the project when the architect was commissioned to provide a creative, attractive facade cladding system to screen the parking garages in one of the most recent expansions that included the new corporate headquarters for American Greetings.

What was the purpose of this project? What did the client request?

Our scope of work was to engineer, fabricate, and install a permanent architectural facade screening system with the addition of applying permanent graphics on the prominent facades of the two parking structures. Another name for this system is called a Tensile Mesh Facade or Textile, Fabric Mesh Screening. Tensile Mesh Facades provided an economical alternative to a perforated metal or metal mesh facade system.

We were able to provide a very creative, innovative parking garage screening device by simply fabricating the fabric mesh and tensioning it with a perimeter aluminum framing extrusion system mounted to the face of the parking garage. Additional benefits this innovative facade system provided was it reduced light pollution from car lights and garage light onto neighboring buildings which was a requirement of the project. In addition, this system maintained views out and maintained air flow through the mesh so additional mechanical ventilation was not needed.

What is unique or complex about the project?

The most unique ability of Tensile Mesh Facades is the ability to weld various different mesh colors together and provide printed graphics. We incorporated advanced UV ink technology to create a printed graphics of the “forest” onto the fabric mesh to provide an attractive, dramatic facade cladding system to screen these parking structures.
For environments where the “visual arts” wants to be celebrated, printed graphics on Tensile Mesh Screening provide a very attractive, economical solution. You even have the ability to change out the mesh very economically to refresh the look of the facade for a new owner or tenant or do a new branding campaign.

Tensile Mesh Facades have been used for decades all over Europe and Asia. With a typical warranty of 10-years and a life expectancy of 18 to 25 years depending on the type of mesh, what is not to love. Here is the US this technology has been drastically expanding not only for parking structures but more importantly for building facades to reduce heat gain and reduce glare and energy costs for cooling.