From a concrete manufacturer, it's reasonable to expect a
tendency towards the large-scale, the speed of production
processes and the solidity of materials. But Wolfgang Rieder's
passion, as head of the family company, led him to develop the
lightweight concrete fibreC, a skin of sorts that can help to solve
architects' problems. The ones nobody would deal with.
In 2004 Wolfgang left the world of marketing to take control
of Rieder—a classic, sturdy concrete company located deep in
Austria's Salzburg region. He promptly went on to invent fibreC,
a type of concrete that incorporates thin layers of fibreglass into
the concrete matrix. Rieder refers to the resulting lightweight,
flexible panels as a "concrete skin", which can respond
positively to the wildest of architectural whims. The physical
characteristics and workability of the material allow it to be
bent and curved as never before, transforming the panels from
simple building components into potentially complex elements
of design. Within a very short period of time, the AA in London
began using fibreC for its installations, and the Storefront for
Art and Architecture in New York chose it for the restoration of
its experimental facade designed by Vito Acconci and Steven
Holl. The name also started to circulate rapidly among architects
the world over, until a dramatic leap in scale with its use in the
Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg, which utilised 30,000
square feet of coloured panels seen by over 700 million viewers
of the 2010 World Cup.
Problem solving concrete
The story of fibreC, a flexible and durable cladding concrete that meets virtually impossible design demands.
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- Lucia Tozzi
- 14 October 2011
- Maishofen
But the most significant and challenging breakthrough first arrived when he encountered Zaha Hadid. Rieder was repeatedly obliged to field all of his resources in the relationship with the Iraqi-British architect, which began in Vienna, continued at the AA, and found its first realisation in 2008 with the construction of the Bridge Pavilion for the Zaragoza Expo in Spain. This joint venture, however, was supposed to be followed by the project for the Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan. In order to get the panels right, a huge amount of time and money was spent on consulting, research, purchasing new machines and testing. The outcome was the production of seven different moulds, all of which failed to meet the requirements of Hadid's office in London. "Failure is not a final defeat. Indeed, it is fundamental to an enterprise's development," Rieder has argued in his increasingly frequent lectures in schools such as SCI-Arc and the AA. "In reality, we have gained an enormous amount of know-how and information from the research conducted with Hadid and other architects as well."
Perched high up along a mountain road that must be torture in winter, the house where Rieder lives with his family dominates the valley of Lake Zell, south of Salzburg, which is also home to the firm's offices in Maishofen and the factory in Högmoos. The factory is a monument to understatement comprising two unpretentious warehouses. Inside, a few dozen employees work with an air of extreme concentration. Some of them shape wooden moulds into impossible curves; another group studies concrete being pumped into a tank, testing its consistency with their fingertips for 15 minutes at a time; and another worker taps every inch of a recently closed mould with a mallet to spread the freshly poured concrete evenly.
fibreC consists entirely of organic materials, is completely recyclable and void of any chemical treatments or coatings, and the process used to produce it consumes half as much energy as that required to make glass-fibre concrete.
For months, and at least until the end of the year, this artisan expertise has been dedicated to a single purpose: producing 20,000 panels, almost all of which with unique shapes, for the facade of the KAPSARC (King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center) in Riyadh. The largest energy research centre in the world, it is three times the size of Soccer City in Johannesburg, just to give an idea of its scale. In this instance, the architects essentially presented two types of problems to be resolved: firstly ensuring maximum formal flexibility, and secondly delivering a product that, in addition to its structural strength and aesthetic qualities, would be able to achieve the highest leed rating possible. With its endless trail of ecological certificates, fibreC is peerless in this regard. It consists entirely of organic materials. It is completely recyclable and void of any chemical treatments or coatings. And the process used to produce it consumes half as much energy as that required to make glass-fibre concrete.
The 27,000 panels for KAPSARC's roof, on the other hand, were produced following standard manufacturing methods at the factory in Kolbermoor, Bavaria. The roof is made of the original 13-millimetre-thick fibreC panels, Wolfgang Rieder's "brainchild". The turning point began with the purchase of the Bavarian factory, which had fallen into decline because it produced corrugated panels reminiscent of the asbestos era. Work at this location is more industrial. There is the production line with machines that pour layers of cement, fibre and wire mesh onto a conveyor belt. The operation is repeated with more cement, more fibre and more wire mesh, until the wafer is cut and then sealed with tape by two workers. The colour is strictly integral, added directly to the mixture: a colour per day. Other Rieder fibreC products are also manufactured here, such as Öko Skin, the planks for ventilated facades that result from the need to reuse the remnants of panels used for custom jobs.
Product Manager Markus Blauensteiner is one of the keys to
Rieder's excellent performance. This 37-year-old fan of remote-controlled
machines (helicopters, weapons, whatever) has the
knack of making everything work. He is one of those people
who has an intimate relationship with technology, no matter
how high or low it is, and has been immersed in it since his teens.
He recommended a certain kind of machinery to Wolfgang at
a dinner one evening, and a few days later he received one of
those offers that cannot be refused. So he dropped everything
and went to work at Rieder, and now he's the one who solves
Wolfgang's problems.
Lucia Tozzi