Food4Rhino

I has never been more important to build sustainably, but also to lower operational costs and secure equitable and affordable energy for everyone. However traditional solar panels are neither invisible, nor easy to architecturally integrate in new or old buildings. Solar facades offers a solution that free up precious roof space for social or technical use, and replace traditional facade cladding with a durable material that will also produce carbon free electricity on site.

Solar facades invisibly and architecturally integrate PV in rain-screens, curtain-walls and louvers (as well as naturally roofs and canopies). To make it easy to deploy and lower project risk SolarLab.global has developed a integrated manufacturing platform that can handle complex and large scale customisation to supply fully customized and complete solar facade packages, both quickly and cost effectively.

Almost any panel shape and size is possible and can be tilted to articulate and create facade depth. At the same time the maintenance-free and highly durable cladding is tailored also in finish and color coatings to enable wide range of material expressions to match design requirements, from mirror like surfaces over mat metallic to stucco and painted finish.

Made with mostly recycled materials and sustainable energy in Denmark the solar facades naturally have an EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) and are designed for longevity and recycling after their expected operational life of +50 years. A solar cladding is the only building material that will pay for itself both financially and environmentally while providing a high quality, durable and beautiful result.

This Rhino 8 plugin is one of a range tools also available for SketchUp, Revit and Archicad, that makes it easy to tailor a solar facade to you new build or retrofit project. It provides layout and articulation tools and will automatically layout the PV cells in the panel to give you a visual feedback as to the efficiency of you chosen panel design,but when share with Solarlab.global a detailed simulation can be made that visualize performance and quantify electricity production. With initial sketches and a RoM cost report from the online calculator available at www.solarlab.global you will be well prepared to engage with stakeholders and colleagues.

The 5 automatic layout modes available in the multi panel tools are:

1. Panels size: This mode requires you to give a specific panel width and height, then it fits the most panels possible arrayed horizontally and vertically that it can based on the surface given. This is useful if you have a very to match the width and height of other elements in your design.

2. Quantity: This mode requires you to give a horizontal and vertical quantity of panels, then it sets the panel width and height by dividing the surface given by these quantities.

3. Optimize: This mode fits the least possible amount of panels based on the minimum and maximum dimensions of the SolarLab system, which can only produce panels to be from 360 x 360mm up to 1000 x 3600mm or 1400 x 2400mm.

4. Horizontal stagger: This mode staggers the panels in the horizontal orientation, requiring you to provide a horizontal and vertical quantity of panels, then it sets the panel width and height by dividing the surface given by these quantities. Every other row will start and end with a half panel to create this effect.

5. Vertical stagger: This mode staggers the panels in the vertical orientation, requiring you to provide a horizontal and vertical quantity of panels, then it sets the panel width and height by dividing the surface given by these quantities. Every other column will start and end with a half panel to create this effect.

Alternatively design you own with the single panel tool

The automatic layout modes are just a starting point for design iterations as almost anything is possible with close architectural and engineering support from the in-house team, to lower risk, ensure code compliance and cost-effectiveness....learn more at www.solarlab.global

This tool is a work in progress and provided for inspiration and information purposes, so please help make it better.