Terra Cotta is one of the most beautiful and adaptable building materials. It is representative of the golden age of urban buildings and skyscrapers, hung on the facades to provide the buildings with different textures and colors. Today, Terra Cotta is making a come back. It can be extruded into any form, even sequentially varying profiles stacked in an involuted pattern, so that the familiar becomes novel. Staggering those elements across a facade creates a moire that changes dramatically when seen in different lights or from different angles and distances, like a softly breaking wave.
NBK is our favorite manufacturer of terracotta facades, offering numerous design possibilities and outstanding performance. They have a line of suspended ventilated facade construction with visible elements that are made exclusively of terracotta.
Terracotta facades are ideal for new construction, over cladding and recladding projects.
- Terracotta has the strongest compressive strength and the strongest break load in the industry
- Modern drying and firing techniques allow a nearly tolerance free production of units up to 70″ long
- The low percentage of water absorption ensures that dirt does not penetrate the tile and make it look dirty
- Outstanding color consistency
- Low maintenance material with an inert material color that will not fade with time
- Uses no sealants and is graffiti resistant
- Can also produce large, extremely flat tiles
- tiles contain recycled content that may qualify for LEEDs credit
- Large tiles enable faster installation and lower labor costs
Textured finishes are being increasingly exploited as a unique design feature in new buildings, using natural, ground, or even polished elements. There is quite a range, from smooth surfaces which can highlight a material’s individual granularity, and numerous surfaces with distinct effects. Choose from different textures, including:
- Honed
- Sandblasted
- Fine combed
- Medium combed
- Peeled
- Fine Peeled
GastHome has admired the evolution of specific techniques to create surfaces with a character of their own. Combing, stripping and sanding and other machined techniques can make your building truly one of a kind.
Colors
The spectrum of natural fired colors ranges from white, yellow, sandy and taupe up to colors closer to grey. There is also an infinite range of red tones spanning all the way to brown and black tones. We recommend producing with a molded-on color and using the single-firing method.
However, the beauty of natural ceramics comes from more than just it’s unique color. The manufacturing techniques, when done right, can transform the material’s character.
Applying a uniform engobe gives ceramic an entirely new colored character. The engobes cover a color spectrum that focuses on subtle colors and brings out very special effects that bring pastel colors to mind. By applying the sintered engobe, surfaces with a metallic structure reminiscent of cast iron are created using metal oxide in the reduction firing technique. To protect people’s health, use glazes with lead-free formulations. With the single-firing technique, moth matte and glossy surfaces can be created, as well as all the usual effect glazes based on selenium.
Choose a supplier with a wide variety of Custom and Standard Machining Options available in the production process.
GastHome offers consulting options to help create an individual facade aesthetic that meets the toughest design and performance challenges.
The most common machining options include:
- horizontal cuts
- vertical cuts
- diagonal cuts
- mitre cuts for corners
- drilling
- front or backside jogs