Technology: The polymer facade of SFMOMA
With an area of more than 5000 m² the envelope of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is the largest FRP facade made to date in the USA. To obtain a building permit it successfully passed all the fire regulation tests that are obligatory where FRP is to be used above fourth story level on a high-rise exterior. In comparison to other materials such as concrete or glass fiber reinforced concrete FRP offers the distinct advantage of a considerably lower weight. In the SFMOMA this led not only to drastic cost savings for the steel structure but also to a much shorter construction period. It made it possible to fix each of the 710 individually shaped panels to the steel frame structure via a single pass with the crane. The FRP shells, which measure up to 1.50 × 9 m with a material thickness of just 4.7 mm, were first of all mounted on standardized insulated aluminum panels of the same size. This innovative solution could be implemented only thanks to a planning process that made use of the design-assist procedure, in which the various construction firms are involved in the engineering from the very start.
