The new bus terminal at Zwolle train station is adorned with a beautifully printed fabric roof. The print is created using the latest photo and print techniques and protected with a unique coating. The canvas, with a total weight of 900 kg, is printed and attached to the steel construction of the hood of 70 x 13 meters. The project was created in close cooperation with Buitink Technology.

Outside in

The design on the inside is used creatively to enhance the visitor experience. At the same time, the outside is kept white to reflect the sunlight and regulate the temperature underneath. The benefits are clear: The fabrics can be printed in any design or color, ensuring each application is a unique creation.

Printed fabric

Printable Technical Textiles was selected for the project because of our dedicated technologies, which have been developed for optimal print quality and unrivaled image preservation. Our unique printing techniques deliver a varnishing effect to the print and textile, creating vibrant colors and deep blacks. More importantly, our coating enables us to provide a 10-year unlimited warranty on this printed fabric roof, unprecedented in the world for printed architectural fabrics.

About the design

Three artists (Melle Mijnhardt, Tamme de Boer and Stefan Alberts) were selected to picture the city of Zwolle onto the canvas. Their images were photographed and prepared for print. Passengers arriving by train will not miss this feature, as they walk out of the train tunnel towards the busses and the city. The bus terminal only handles about 1.800 busses a day.

Project description

Project Busterminal
Location NL-8017JG Zwolle
Substrate Serge Ferrari 902S2 (type II)
Quantity 1000m2
Year 2018
Installer Buitink Technology

Printed fabric roof
Tensile roof - Printable - textile roof
Tensile roof - Printable - textile roof
Textile roof - Printable
Printed fabric roof
Printed fabric roof

BigAirBag is the world’s leading manufacturer of airbags for freestyle sports, action sports, and leisure applications. These giant interactive billboards are customized to fit the brand. Printable Technical Textiles printed the full rims for BigAirBag. Both companies share their pride in the high definition digital print, the use of innovative materials, and the durability of its appearance. With over 1000 installations worldwide in the past 10 years, this product’s unrivaled quality and durability have been proved. 

This textile facade, placed in front of the physical glass facade, works like a second skin.

The membrane provides solar protection for the building, favoring energy savings and reducing operating costs. It also ensures the privacy of the occupants of the premises while maintaining a good vision of the outside. The facade becomes a fundamental communication tool situated against the highway, highlighting the Cheops brand and the aesthetic aspect of the building.

The Frontside View 381 membrane of Serge Ferrari was selected as the mesh medium for printing by Printable Technical Textiles. This mesh was tested against the printing and coating SolidskinTec printing process. This unique varnish and coating is specially designed to resist UV and ensures long-term color resistance, guaranteeing the product for 10 years.

Project Description

Project Cheops Technology
Location F-33610 Canéjan
Substrate Serge Ferrari Frontside View 381
Quantity 1400m2
Year 2017
Installer Buitink Technology

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Printed side curtains for trailers

This facade was installed in 2014, and these shots were made in 2018. The facade textile is characterized by its printed surface. Printed on-demand, our SolidskinTec printing process adds the best hard-wearing resistance of the technical textile combined with the freedom of choice in design and ideas. This is the reason The Ateliers Jean Nouvel and MDW architecture chose our product.

The Ateliers Jean Nouvel and MDW architecture project were chosen in 2011 due to international competition. Its goal is to create a public and agreeable image of the police while giving the city a new urban landmark. In Charleroi, they built a new police headquarters and extended the Charleroi Danses buildings.

The site’s main feature is many 19th-century buildings: the Defeld cavalry barracks until now occupied by the gendarmerie, and its old cavalry training ring used by Charleroi Danses, the Choreography Centre for the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles.

The old cavalry training ring ‘Les Écuries’ houses the Choreography center for the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles Charleroi Danses. This space is inhabited by a ‘village’ atmosphere created by a succession of small brick buildings linked by interior paths. The human dimension and the ‘village’ atmosphere that encourages conviviality have been kept and strengthened by new small structures similar to the existing ones and spread along the inner pathways.

The two dance studios have been built on the rear part of the site in a separate building that is part of the ‘village.’ It has a twin-sloping roof. Natural light pours in through large bays of windows in its facades. It is all covered by a micro-perforated fabric on which a photomontage of shows produced by Charleroi Danses has been printed to remind us of the creative function of this area.

Project Description

Project Charleroi Danse Theatre
Location BE-6000 Charleroi
Substrate Serge Ferrari FT371
Quantity 2000m2
Year 2014
Installer S.A. Schreiber

textile facades

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Sense-City is a climate chamber that can cover two 400m² areas.  It is called a Mini-City, equipped with many sensors to study the performance of facilities and urban materials. And to monitor the city of tomorrow by sending appropriate information and research air, water, and soil pollution.

Sense-city will also be used to move forward on the design, improvement, and calibration of micro and nanosensors and improve the chain from the sensor to decision-making. The climate chamber can be moved from one area to another as needed. This makes it possible to perform experiments in actual instrumented conditions, in the open air, or under controlled conditions and to build new mini-cities without interrupting all the experiments.

Our printing process applied to technical textiles uses a unique process developed over 15 years of innovation and thoroughly tested by the COT and TÜV institute. The substrates printed and protected with SolidskinTec are the only product in this market offering a 10-year warranty on UV resistance, dirt-repellence, and flex resistance against tearing.

Project description

Project Sense City (Université Paris-Est)
Location F-77447 Marne la Vallée
Substrate Sioen T 2302 FE
Quantity 1650m2
Year 2017
Installer ACS Production

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Textile Architecture for Charleroi Danse Theatre

The Charleroi Danse Theatre was installed in 2014 and these shots were made in 2018. The facade architecture textile is characterised by its printed surface. Printed on-demand, our substrates achieve the best hard-wearing resistance combined with freedom of choice in design and ideas this is the reason The Ateliers Jean Nouvel and MDW architecture chose for our membrame.

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Textile facade for Fricke and Saphir

The Fricke - Saphir Building in Bockel, Germany was renewed in 2013 and holds a retail shop for their products. The vulnerability and the exposure to nature were key in this project. Long time relationships between printer, confectioner and producer of the technical textile, lead to the right solution.

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Textile architecture for Cité internationale de la tapisserie

We can hardly think of a better reference than being selected for our textiles for facade architecture of the Cité internationale de la tapisserie (Museum of Aubusson tapestry). Located halfway between Clermont-Ferrand and Limoges, this major centre for artistic craft and a skill dating back to the Middle Ages, the Aubusson tapestry was listed as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

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The Fricke Saphir Building in Bockel, Germany, was renewed in 2013 and held a retail shop for its products.

The Fricke Group is one of the largest private enterprises in the agricultural machinery industry and is very successful in many areas today. Fricke group and Saphir offer robust and reliable technology to agricultural machinery specialist dealers. The product line includes machines for grassland work ranging from rotary mowers to grassland harrows and pasteur rollers, livestock trailers, and equipment for preparing the soil and cultivation.

The front part of the building opens on the ground floor via a completely glazed façade to the outer surfaces. A unique feature of the building is the textile membrane, which disguises the upper floor of the office wing and symbolizes technical innovation and clear lines. Its distinctive design also acts remotely as an advertising space for the Saphir brand.

The display and advertising company Sign Ware in Sunder, Germany designed and installed the whole facade cladding with the steel substructure and clamping system, Screen age from Miederhoff is a classic system for facade banners in large format with robust clamping technology. A hidden and segmented installation can be implemented with it. To meet static requirements, the components are made of high-quality materials.

The initial installation was not a success. Unfortunately, the membrane (not from Sioen and Printable Technical Textiles) failed to perform; the ink faded after two years. These things can happen when membrane, varnish, ink, and finishing are not all 100% aligned.

In a second phase, Sybold confection reinstalled a mesh product produced by Sioen. Printable Technical Textiles realized this red print through their SolidskinTec printing process. The vulnerability and the exposure to nature were vital in this project. Long-time relationships between printer, confectioner, and producer of technical textiles, lead to the right solution. The consortium of these two grants a warranty of ten years on the material and printing due to a special lacquer on top of the ink and the mesh material. The new membrane was installed in 2016.

Fotos: D:4, Heinrich Hermes, Studio Banck, Bernd Langer, H. Seybold GmbH

Project description

Project Fricke – Saphir
Location D-27404 Gyhum-Bockel
Substrate Sioen T 2302 FE
Quantity 460m2
Year 2016
Installer H. Seybold

textile facades

Printed truck side curtains are a perfect way to profile a product or service to the public. To create a clear message and utilize the opportunities to their fullest, there are a few things to consider when coming up with the design.

8 tips for the design for trailer curtains
truck side curtains

Be aware of the medium.

Did you know that a truck side curtains is seen around a million times per month?

Lorries are very large and move through the traffic. That’s why you should try to limit the message to its core. For example, a phone number is more complex to remember than a website or company name. Make a clear decision when it comes to the aim of your message. Is increasing brand recognition more critical, or are you trying to bring a message to the public’s attention?

truck side curtains

The ratchet straps and reflective stripes on truck side curtains

Ratchet straps and the compulsory reflective stripes disrupt the image space and are more susceptible to damage. Therefore, considering this in your truck side curtains design is a good idea. The buckles can tear or come loose on a journey or might not have been closed properly, and the straps might then rub the curtain, causing visible damage. To prevent this kind of mechanical damage to the image, the manufacturer of the side curtain can design the lower part of the full-color image with a strip of colored canvas. It is, therefore, advisable to have as little imagery as possible in this strip or to consciously include the strip in the design.

truck side curtains

The weather strip

A so-called weather strip of about 10 cm is added to the top of the truck side curtains to prevent rainwater from coming in. This fixed part of the trailer covers the opening between the rails and the curtain side. You should allow for a reduction in the image size due to this strip. If the strip is made partially or entirely made of a hard synthetic material, it will cut the full-color curtain side like a knife whenever the curtain is opened or closed. This could damage the image after a while. To prevent this, a dark PVC strip can be welded to the curtain side. This strip is cut without it being noticeable, preventing this from happening to the actual curtain. Ask the manufacturer of your curtain for the well-known details about this.

truck side curtains

The use of color and cabin color in combination with the truck side curtains

Standard truck side curtains are only available in conventional bodywork colors, but it’s the combination of an iconic lorry and trailer color that can create a personal and signature style. The SolidskinTec printing process provides a unique degree of gloss. This gloss ensures that the shine on the side curtain is the same as that of metallic bodywork. Our printers are capable of matching any color standard, including automotive paints. The matching colors of the printed truck side curtains and the color of the cabins make for a unique and impressive identifying image. With a truck side curtain printed with SolidskinTec, you are sure the color match will stay accurate for over 5 years.

Side curtains

Resolution of images

Producing printed truck side curtains is more than simply printing. The SolidskinTec printing process has been specially developed to enhance the image and protect its appearance. Through our process, colors seem much more intense, and shades of black are much richer due to our polyurethane fusing process. When preparing an image, shades of black must be ‘rich black.’ Bearing in mind the intensifying effect, it is also essential to make the middle tints lighter to increase the contrast.

The technical textiles we use are standard grey on the inside. This is a deliberate choice; the dirt from intensive use is less visible or not visible at all, and the contours of the load can’t be seen when light shines from the side (block-out effect). An additional advantage is that the color intensity of the actual image on the truck side curtains is much greater.

Rembrandt - Printable solidskin schuifzeilen

Left and right sides of truck side curtains

A fact sometimes forgotten is that the direction you drive affects the design. Despite it being easy to apply the same design on both sides of the truck side curtains, in practice, we see that this only works with a centered layout. It’s always worth at least mirroring the design per side and taking a good look at the whole image story.

Resolution

Although the resolution isn’t an issue in the case of a vector design, it can prove to be a challenge for pixel designs on large surfaces. Our printers can process a resolution of 600 dpi, which sometimes makes files extremely large. Our printing software adjusts for this, which means that (with the correct conversion of files) we can work with images as low as 250 dpi at 100% and still achieve a perfect result.

So, you should ensure that the images in the design have this resolution or higher. It is, therefore, sometimes necessary to enlarge the image beforehand. If this enlargement is over 150% of the original image, we advise you to put ‘noise’ or ‘grain’ over the image. This increases the varnishing effect described in photography.

Did you know that SolidskinTec printed truck side curtains has an unrivaled 5-year guarantee on image quality?

Printable solidskin schuifzeilen

We can hardly think of a better reference than being selected for our textiles by the Cité internationale de la tapisserie (Museum of Aubusson tapestry). Located halfway between Clermont-Ferrand and Limoges, this major center for artistic craft and a skill dating back to the Middle Ages, the Aubusson tapestry was listed as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

Tapestry traditions influence a striped façade for a re-used building

The centre occupies the former National School of Decorative Art, which was built in the late 1960s. “The €8.5 million renovation project involved the aim to give a ‘new visibility’ to Aubusson’s heritage”, says Nelly Breton of Paris-based Terreneuve. “All the ingredients were there to do something directly related to the image of tapestry”, she continues, “adding that the designers had a ‘moral obligation’ to insulate the façade, originally constructed with the use of asbestos”. Within its slatted ‘cage’ of timber – made from Douglas firs grown locally in Limousin – the striped fabric skin incorporates a solar filter that protects the tapestries inside the building. The fabric’s pale-grey inner surface shields the interior from the sun.

Parts of this publication come from Mark Magazine #64

The project fits like a glove for our printed facade textiles

Printable Technical Textiles was selected for the project because of our dedicated print protection technologies, which have been developed for optimal print quality and unrivaled image preservation. Our unique print and coating techniques deliver a varnishing effect to the print and textile, creating vibrant colors. More importantly, our technology enables us to provide a 10-year unlimited warranty on this technical textile, unprecedented in the world for printed architectural fabrics.

Project description 

Project Cité internationale de la tapisserie
Location F-23200 Aubusson
Substrate Serge Ferrari Frontside View 381
Quantity 1400 m2
Year 2015
Installer ACS Production
textile facades
textile facades

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