Most solar projects find a place for the panels once the building is designed. This one worked the other way around. Jean-Didier…

SOLTECH

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Most solar projects find a place for the panels once the building is designed. This one worked the other way around. Jean-Didier Steenackers started with the solar resource - where the light falls on the corner of the Kruidtuinlaan and Rogierplein, how the surrounding towers cast their shadows through the day - and let the architecture follow. Laurent Ney's steel portals are where they are because the cable geometry demands it. The cables are pre-tensioned to a three-dimensional curve that handles wind, drains water and keeps the glass clean. The 850 m² of ISSOL® Square above the rooftop park isn't decorative. It's structural logic made visible. And visible is the right word. Unlike most #BIPV applications, the cells here are intentionally exposed. You can read every monocrystalline unit through the glass. They cast a grid of shadows on the terrace floor. Steenackers' argument: solar technology has spent too long hiding itself. On a 1970s building that had no presence on one of Brussels' busiest intersections, that argument now stands 144 kWp tall. The fabrication had its own story - 10 prefabricated segments, fully assembled and tested at TMI's workshop in Seilles, then transported under police escort and welded in situ during night-time closures of the Rogierplein. By day, a power station. By night, the origami steel portals light up from within. Discover it here ➡️ https://lnkd.in/e4hECD5C #BIPV #BuildingIntegratedPhotovoltaics #SolarCanopy #SolarArchitecture #UrbanRooftop #RooftopSolar #StructuralEngineering #SteelDesign #SustainableRenovation #CircularBuilding #GreenUrbanDesign #ArchitecturalGlass #BrusselsArchitecture #SolarEnergy #EnergyRenovation