Ventilated facade

A ventilated facade, often called a rainscreen, is built in layers from outside in: the cladding, a continuous air cavity, thermal insulation and the supporting wall. The cladding can be ceramic, natural stone, composite panel, fibre cement, metal or timber, and it is fixed back to the wall on an aluminium or stainless steel substructure. In Turkish it is havalandırmalı cephe.

What the cavity does

With openings at the bottom and top of the cavity, air warmed by the sun rises and leaves at the top while fresh air enters below. That natural flow carries away moisture and condensation that could build up behind the cladding, keeping the insulation dry. In summer part of the heat absorbed by the cladding is flushed away before it reaches the wall. The outer layer also acts as a rain screen, stopping most water before it ever reaches the insulation.

Practical points

• The insulation layer should be continuous, and thermal bridging at substructure brackets kept to a minimum.
• Fire performance of the insulation and cladding, and cavity barriers between floors, need careful selection.
• Details around windows, parapets and the base of the wall decide how well the whole system performs.

Panel sizes and joint layouts give ventilated facades a crisp grid. In visualisation, modelling panel divisions and joints to their real dimensions makes the cladding look like an actual product rather than a texture.