.
- A noble metallic look is one of the major trends in architecture
- Coils for facades and buildings are being painted in an increasingly individual fashion
- With special effect paints, the coil industry and BASF Coatings are launching new trends
More daring colors: the standard grey coating now seems to be becoming history in architecture too. With a variety of colors and special effects, commercial buildings are now acquiring more individuality, reflecting the corporate identity of the companies using them or, with their high-quality metallic surfaces, symbolizing elegance, success, solidity and permanence. BASF Coatings provides the coil industry with cutting-edge technologies and processes that allow it to implement in a masterly fashion even quite extravagant design ideas for metal facades.
Growing by leaps and bounds, the desire of architects and their clients to put more color into architectural designs seems to be keeping pace with what is technologically feasible. Actually, this trend is hardly surprising: colors have an impact on many areas of our everyday lives, affecting moods and conveying emotions. That is why architects are now glad to harness the new possibilities for applying individual colors and special effect coatings to aluminium and steel coils.
Here, many a trend seems quite familiar: silver, for instance, in many forms and different metallic finishes, has been the principal trend for years now when you think of cars. Trends originating in architecture, interior design and the world of fashion are also having an impact. "The evolution of trends is a minor phenomenon. They duplicate themselves, and their starting point can be anywhere. They have an effect, sometimes delayed, on many other fields. The trend scout's task is to analyse these currents and harness them to his or her own industry", as the color designer, Eva Höfli, puts it. As a trend scout for BASF Coatings working jointly with colleagues in the USA and Japan, she identifies the color trends and customer desires of the future.
This data and information that the company is compiling in collaboration with the automobile industry is very readily applicable to other fields, not least that of coil coatings. The quality of the metallic paints, the wide diversity of colours and their matching accuracy, and, indeed, the high quality standards of the pigments - all these criteria are met for all segments in equal measure.
Color diversity, based quite individually on the customer's requirements - something that has been on the agenda in automotive engineering for many years now - has now reached architecture too, in the form of a new variety of colors and special effects. And nowadays the coil industry has at its command all the technological facilities needed to use special effects and high-grade metallic finishes for coil coating too. "Our years of experience and the expertise we have accumulated in OEM business are very useful for this purpose. As far as coating is concerned, the markets have become quite similar to one another: merely giving the metal protection is no longer the only concern: for some time now, it has also become essential for the coating to have a high decorative value too", states product manager Anne Heimes-Scheller. At the same time, she draws attention to the additional, quite stringent requirements: "Paint products for coils are exposed to even far tougher conditions and environmental impacts. At the same time, they have to retain their protective functions and decorative appearance for an extremely long period of time."
The fashion industry thinks in terms of seasons lasting a maximum of six months, but car manufacturers plan new color trends at least five years in advance - and the construction sector is concerned with themes and products that have even longer life cycles. It can thus be predicted that the trend towards color diversity and metallic surfaces in architecture has by no means reached its peak yet. For instance, high-quality metallic surfaces for facades were still inconceivable a few years ago. Nowadays, appropriate means of application and metallic flakes are available - a fact that gives rise to both increasing acceptability and increases in demand.
More and more prestige properties, office buildings and factory sheds are being built in individual colour schemes that often reflect the corporate design of the company using them. Consequently, in the coil coatings segment BASF has developed tailor-made products for a whole series of coating systems. Thanks to having its own in-house pigments division, the BASF Group has a special insight into everything that has to do with creating new visual effects. This expertise has highlighted certain aspects of product development and narrowed down the choice of pigments that are most suitable for specific applications.
Market observers by no means expect the final stage in this development to have been reached with the advent of gleaming metallic facades. Thus, it is not the subject of new colours alone that is likely to have a major impact on coils in the architectural field in the next few years. Alongside this, the market has now seen the birth of sufficient experience and spirit too for it to permit the use of special effect coatings for exclusive and special applications, such as "very prestigious buildings".
Even if this is still actually a long way off, one thing's already for sure: extraordinary, individual color designs and effects have now become an integral part of architecture and the construction industry. BASF Coatings views itself as being one of the suppliers leading the market in this area of applications too.
About BASF
BASF is the world's leading chemical company: The Chemical Company. Its portfolio ranges from oil and gas to chemicals, plastics, performance products, agricultural products and fine chemicals. As a reliable partner BASF helps its customers in virtually all industries to be more successful. With its high-value products and intelligent solutions, BASF plays an important role in finding answers to global challenges such as climate protection, energy efficiency, nutrition and mobility. BASF has more than 95,000 employees and posted sales of almost ¤58 billion in 2007. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchanges in Frankfurt (BAS), London (BFA) and Zurich (AN). Further information on BASF is available on the Internet at www.basf.com.
- A noble metallic look is one of the major trends in architecture
- Coils for facades and buildings are being painted in an increasingly individual fashion
- With special effect paints, the coil industry and BASF Coatings are launching new trends
More daring colors: the standard grey coating now seems to be becoming history in architecture too. With a variety of colors and special effects, commercial buildings are now acquiring more individuality, reflecting the corporate identity of the companies using them or, with their high-quality metallic surfaces, symbolizing elegance, success, solidity and permanence. BASF Coatings provides the coil industry with cutting-edge technologies and processes that allow it to implement in a masterly fashion even quite extravagant design ideas for metal facades.
Growing by leaps and bounds, the desire of architects and their clients to put more color into architectural designs seems to be keeping pace with what is technologically feasible. Actually, this trend is hardly surprising: colors have an impact on many areas of our everyday lives, affecting moods and conveying emotions. That is why architects are now glad to harness the new possibilities for applying individual colors and special effect coatings to aluminium and steel coils.
Here, many a trend seems quite familiar: silver, for instance, in many forms and different metallic finishes, has been the principal trend for years now when you think of cars. Trends originating in architecture, interior design and the world of fashion are also having an impact. "The evolution of trends is a minor phenomenon. They duplicate themselves, and their starting point can be anywhere. They have an effect, sometimes delayed, on many other fields. The trend scout's task is to analyse these currents and harness them to his or her own industry", as the color designer, Eva Höfli, puts it. As a trend scout for BASF Coatings working jointly with colleagues in the USA and Japan, she identifies the color trends and customer desires of the future.
This data and information that the company is compiling in collaboration with the automobile industry is very readily applicable to other fields, not least that of coil coatings. The quality of the metallic paints, the wide diversity of colours and their matching accuracy, and, indeed, the high quality standards of the pigments - all these criteria are met for all segments in equal measure.
Color diversity, based quite individually on the customer's requirements - something that has been on the agenda in automotive engineering for many years now - has now reached architecture too, in the form of a new variety of colors and special effects. And nowadays the coil industry has at its command all the technological facilities needed to use special effects and high-grade metallic finishes for coil coating too. "Our years of experience and the expertise we have accumulated in OEM business are very useful for this purpose. As far as coating is concerned, the markets have become quite similar to one another: merely giving the metal protection is no longer the only concern: for some time now, it has also become essential for the coating to have a high decorative value too", states product manager Anne Heimes-Scheller. At the same time, she draws attention to the additional, quite stringent requirements: "Paint products for coils are exposed to even far tougher conditions and environmental impacts. At the same time, they have to retain their protective functions and decorative appearance for an extremely long period of time."
The fashion industry thinks in terms of seasons lasting a maximum of six months, but car manufacturers plan new color trends at least five years in advance - and the construction sector is concerned with themes and products that have even longer life cycles. It can thus be predicted that the trend towards color diversity and metallic surfaces in architecture has by no means reached its peak yet. For instance, high-quality metallic surfaces for facades were still inconceivable a few years ago. Nowadays, appropriate means of application and metallic flakes are available - a fact that gives rise to both increasing acceptability and increases in demand.
More and more prestige properties, office buildings and factory sheds are being built in individual colour schemes that often reflect the corporate design of the company using them. Consequently, in the coil coatings segment BASF has developed tailor-made products for a whole series of coating systems. Thanks to having its own in-house pigments division, the BASF Group has a special insight into everything that has to do with creating new visual effects. This expertise has highlighted certain aspects of product development and narrowed down the choice of pigments that are most suitable for specific applications.
Market observers by no means expect the final stage in this development to have been reached with the advent of gleaming metallic facades. Thus, it is not the subject of new colours alone that is likely to have a major impact on coils in the architectural field in the next few years. Alongside this, the market has now seen the birth of sufficient experience and spirit too for it to permit the use of special effect coatings for exclusive and special applications, such as "very prestigious buildings".
Even if this is still actually a long way off, one thing's already for sure: extraordinary, individual color designs and effects have now become an integral part of architecture and the construction industry. BASF Coatings views itself as being one of the suppliers leading the market in this area of applications too.
About BASF
BASF is the world's leading chemical company: The Chemical Company. Its portfolio ranges from oil and gas to chemicals, plastics, performance products, agricultural products and fine chemicals. As a reliable partner BASF helps its customers in virtually all industries to be more successful. With its high-value products and intelligent solutions, BASF plays an important role in finding answers to global challenges such as climate protection, energy efficiency, nutrition and mobility. BASF has more than 95,000 employees and posted sales of almost ¤58 billion in 2007. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchanges in Frankfurt (BAS), London (BFA) and Zurich (AN). Further information on BASF is available on the Internet at www.basf.com.
