A unique building envelope with GFRC

GFRC allows to create unique building envelopes like for the Broad project. 'The Broad' is an art museum in the heart of downtown Los Angeles designed by the famous architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The three story high building is enclosed with a veil out of more than 2 450 GFRC (glass fiber reinforced concrete) elements. There are hundreds of individual types of GFRC elements designed and analyzed with the 3D-software. Each type requires a separate formwork for its unique shaping and individual steel subframe for fixation to the primary structure. The unique organic formed GFRC elements have funnel openings allowing the indirect sunlight to shine through so that the required artificial lightning could be reduced within the building. Behind the openings there is a second envelope of glass. This second envelope consists out of two side supported glass units with up to 7.6 m span. Due to the seismic requirements special precautions have been carried out in the design of this sophisticated GFRC and glass envelope. The unique building will be a new landmark in the City of Los Angeles when opened to the public.