For several decades, building integrated photovoltaics (BIPVs) have been waiting in the wings for much-anticipated fame and success. But the technology, which transforms a building’s envelope into a solar power plant, has remained a niche market since its development in the late 1970s…
A project that demonstrates a higher profile for BIPV is the 64-story mixed-use Tanjong Pagar Centre, which will be the tallest building in Singapore when completed later this year. At the base of the mixed-use structure’s two conjoined steel-and-glass towers, the architects at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) designed a 26,000-square-foot City Room Pavilion with thin film solar modules embedded in the glass canopy. The challenge of the 80-foot-tall steelframe structure was to provide the retail and public areas with protection from the intense tropical sun and heavy rain while generating power, according to SOM’s design development lead architect, Nicolas Medrano.