SolarLab: Solar facades–ready to shine

By Signe Hansen

A facade that not only looks beautiful and lasts for generations, but also generates clean energy for the building it adorns – it almost sounds like a utopian dream. But with a decade of growth and successful projects all around the globe, SolarLab has proven that it is not. Providing complete systems, the Danish solar facade specialist turns facades into power stations in all kinds of environments, from the Caribbean glare to the Arctic cold.

With 12,000 individually tilted solar modules supplying up to 50 per cent of the school’s electricity needs, Copenhagen International School has become a landmark in sustainable architecture. Completed in 2016, the project also led directly to the founding of SolarLab.

Fanshawe College. Photo: Tom Arban @SolarLab.Global

At the time, architect and industrial designer Anders Smith was part of the foundation that built Copenhagen International School, and he envisioned a solar facade for the project; the only problem was that nobody made one. A minor obstacle that was soon overcome. “I figured out how to do it, convinced the architect, and teamed up with two colleagues with decades of PV know-how – that’s how we founded SolarLab,” recalls Smith, now the company’s CEO.

CIS, Copenhagen International School ‒ Copenhagen, Denmark. Photo: Adam Mørk

The completed school, still the world’s largest facade-integrated PV installation, set the tone for everything that followed. Visitors came to see, architects came to ask. “What you get is a high-quality glass facade that lasts for generations – colours that don’t fade, and we deliver the whole thing as a complete system. Nobody else really does that,” says Smith.

Since its origin, the company’s systems have spread to new and old buildings across the world: colleges in Canada, landmark buildings in Norway and Denmark, Carparks in the US and commissions as far as Japan and the Caribbean.

ZEB Lab – Trondheim, Norway. Photo: Nicola Lolli

Not just a pretty facade

While Solarlab’s facades are both stunning and highly unique, part of their appeal is how little fuss the glass-covered panels make. “It lasts for generations and there are no seals to replace, so it’s essentially maintenance-free,” says Smith. “Panel-level monitoring and full documentation take the anxiety out of large arrays: if a panel misbehaves, the system isolates it, tells you which one it is, and keeps the rest working.”

It is low risk by design because SolarLab supplies the cladding, the electrics, and the monitoring as one whole. This means that solar cladding is no longer just for the innovative and visionary architects but also for pragmatic developers, data centres, carparks and factories, where the numbers provide hard facts as to the sensibility of fitting or retrofitting a solar cladding. “In our online tools, we can see developers running the calculations for large estates with hundreds of homes,” explains Smith. “The scale is growing: projects are bigger, and there are more of them. Interest is also moving up the food chain to the people who actually control the budgets, not just the designers.”

Partly, that shift is driven by uncertainty in global energy markets; volatile prices make on-site generation more relevant. Moreover, when the facade replaces conventional cladding with something that also lowers costs, it becomes attractive to portfolio owners who feel the operational bill every month. “Hotels are a good example as they consume a lot of power during the day. If they can bring that down – and get a facade that doesn’t need repainting every few years yet still looks good – the operational benefits are huge,” Smith points out.

Architect and industrial designer Anders Smith, founder and CEO of SolarLab.

The beauty of pragmatism

On top of its pragmatic appeal, the facade offers a myriad of architectural opportunities and unique aesthetics. Rain screen, curtain wall, or louvres — all arrive with a language of finishes and textures: satin that softly diffuses light, crystal that reads as spandrel, deep structures that feel like split stone or charred timber. Metallic-like iridescence, ceramic-like matt hues, printed frits where patterns matter.

Smith is blunt about the priority: “For us, it’s about the architecture. We don’t dictate size, shape or look – the architects do, and we expand, not limit, the choices. We can make panels look like metal or ceramic; we can give them texture – even a charred-wood feel – while keeping performance high.”

Meanwhile, even the aesthetic qualities of the panels are rooted in sound pragmatism. Because the colour is a structural effect created by nano-thin layers on the rear, it does not fade, and a replacement panel decades from now will match like for like. Moreover, since the colour is not a pigment in the glass, the glass stays clean for recycling. At the end-of-life, it goes back into the stream as ultra-clear cullet rather than contaminated spandrel; in practice, panels yield around 95–96 per cent material recovery, and the marine-grade aluminium frames are fully recyclable, too. The result is a facade designed for decades that will not create a waste problem when it finally comes down.

Red River College Innovation Center – Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Photo: doublespacephoto

Financially sensible

With projects all over the world, SolarLab has proven that solar cladding provides a financially sensible alternative to traditional facades in all sorts of climates, not just those where the sun is blazing 12 months a year.

In many projects, SolarLab’s facade simply replaces the cladding line in the budget. “At Copenhagen International School, we eliminated a cladding that we would have paid for anyway and replaced it with one that will pay for itself – and power the building,” says Smith. “Yes, the upfront spend is real; the downstream spend is smaller. You buy less energy for decades, and the facade keeps working.”

And while some projects require hundreds of unique panels, others, such as large parking structures in the U.S., might specify thousands of identical ones. SolarLab’s production is set up for both, and has even delivered a system for the blazing cold of the Arctic. “In the Arctic, you can have full sun at –50°C. Aluminium and glass move differently; thermal stress can wreck things. We design for those extremes – anywhere in the world,” Smith explains.

Taking on tomorrow’s challenge

When it comes to solar energy, the pressure is not invention; it is adoption. “We need to produce more solar energy where it’s needed and without consuming more land,” says Smith. That urgency has tracked SolarLab’s own trajectory: from a single landmark facade to dozens of projects, a 50-strong team and a Danish production base that has stepped through ever-larger facilities, with a growing network of international distributors.
The next wave is already lining up – including in the US, where cities such as New York, which has an ambition of reaching one million CO₂-neutral buildings by 2027, provide a dense urban environment where onsite energy generation and solar cladding simply make sense.

To this, SolarLab provides an answer that is disarmingly simple: beautiful buildings that power themselves. “Make the energy on site,” Smith says. “Do it with a facade that people want to look at for fifty years – and one that quietly pays its way.”