Innovative aluminum facade solution with unique combination of ventilation and noise reduction

With the glaring shortage of housing, the Netherlands faces a major housing challenge. Some of this can be achieved within urban areas, but housing construction in urban areas is especially difficult. "This is mainly because construction in the Netherlands is of the highest quality, which is a good thing," says Johan Andringa of Intal. Together with Heddes Bouw & Ontwikkeling, Intal has developed and tested an innovative aluminum facade solution for facades with heavy noise exposure: Harbour Fenster. 

With Harbour Fenster, Intal jumps perfectly into real estate developments near highways, railroads or industry. "With a view to a good living and working environment, the maximum permissible noise level must be taken into account in combination with the stated ventilation requirements."

Perfectly soundproofing while maintaining ventilation

"The combination of spray ventilation and noise reduction on the façade is unique to Harbour Fenster," Andringa says, explaining, "It is a double-frame principle where the outer window acts as a building-related noise screen, implemented with a permanent opening in the frame. This noise screen can be opened for glass cleaning as well as for opening the entire space behind it. The interior window is designed as a standard turning window with an additional smaller opening section at the top of the opening. With Harbour Fenster you meet the requirements for a deaf façade, while maintaining thermal insulation, daylight access and the required spigot ventilation."

Soundproof facade in student housing

Harbour Fenster was applied for the first time in the Netherlands to a special student housing complex on the Laan van Spartaan in Amsterdam-West. With sixteen floors, the complex is the tallest modular building in the Netherlands. In addition, Intal's soundproof façade is another architectural highlight. "The building is right next to the railroad, which means that there is a very high noise level on the facade. With Harbour Fenster, the sound waves are broken while the ventilation flow remains intact. In this project, Harbour Fenster was applied on a large scale with the desired result." 

Trend

With the ever-increasing pressure on inner-city construction combined with the demands and requirements set, the demand for this type of innovative solution will only increase. "Harbour Fenster has been around for a while, but it will be more widely applied on a large scale," according to Andringa. "It is nice to see how the efforts from that time, for a product we believed in, is now a valuable addition within the challenges now facing construction. Architects are increasingly finding us and our solutions in this regard. Currently, Intal is providing aluminum façade solutions at several major projects in the Netherlands, one of which is Harbour Fenster."

New face

"To raise the profile of our circular aluminum facade solutions more on the front end, we are introducing a new face: Michel van den Berg. With his years of experience, Michel can make a valuable contribution as Architectural Consultant at Intal by joining architects' design processes at an early stage and providing them with the right advice. This enables us to even better translate the architect's wishes into the right aluminum facade solution. In addition, as a system house and processor in one, we are making strides in the further development of our profile system. Together with external consultancies, we are continuously testing and developing. This offers interesting results: the areas of application are constantly expanding and the architectural freedom and design possibilities are also increasing. In addition, we are increasingly responding to the prefab delivery of products." Andringa concludes, "With a good design, a tight construction process and good quality products such as Harbour Fenster, it is perfectly possible to build housing in locations where there is a high noise load on the facade."