Vines growing on stainless steel cable mesh

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In Spring 2012, the biggest German telecommunication company, Telekom, opened a parking garage for 630 vehicles for employees and visitors at their siege in Bonn, Germany. Trellises for climbing plants were installed by Carl Stahl GmbH, the specialist company for wire rope and lifting equipment. Stainless steel wire rope assemblies by Carl Stahl are used worldwide on parking garages due to the versatility of the X-TEND and I-SYS systems. The stainless steel systems made of cables were for example used for this purpose at the Schiffsbauergasse Parking Garage in Potsdam's entertainment quarter, as well as at the new Airport Berlin International. For the project in Berlin, Carl Stahl worked together with EADS for the prevention of reflecting the radar waves by the parking garage buildings facing towards the airfield.

Since 1995, the telecommunication group's Deutsche Telekom AG main location is Bonn, Germany, in the quarter previously known as the government quarter. The new parking garage is located at the corner of Nahum-Goldmann / Olof-Palme-Alley, with a length of 210 metres. Approximately one third of the 2,500 Telekom employees working in the central siege come to work by car. The search for a parking place so far was a combination of lottery and stress which the employees had to face every morning. Today they can start their day relaxed, due to the new Parking Garage on the backside of the office building, offering space for 630 cars on 17.000m², built by the Bielefeld construction company Goldbeck West GmbH.

Magenta gets a green side

Not only is the new parking space a relaxing influence on the employees, the 16 metres high building is covered with an X-TEND stainless steel mesh construction, which will soon show a green cover of vines growing on the trellis façade, and thus offer a natural view out of the office buildings' windows. The parking garage's open and light façade construction stands for unobstructed views from the inside and the outside, thus granting the required transparency and security at the same time. In total, 2,000m² of X-TEND mesh were installed in 2 vertical layers at the Telekom Parking Garage in Bonn. The X-TEND mesh, produced of 3mm stainless steel cables with a mesh width of 180mm, is positioned on a third of the façade's total surface for its purpose of guiding the vine plants when growing to the top of the building. A steel construction designed as abstract tree shapes is positioned in front of the regular façade level, thus offering the plants two vertical levels as a climbing aid. Two thousand rope guiding elements were installed for the fixation of the I-SYS stainless steel cable assemblies, which hold the X-TEND mesh panels in place. EPDM plastic elements between the galvanized steelwork and the stainless steel parts allow for long lifetime and avoidance of contact corrosion.

Classification as an open parking deck

X-TEND stainless steel cable mesh by Carl Stahl is used, among other applications, as fall protection on parking garage facades and in addition to their security aspect, X-TEND offers a high transparency for air and water. Therefore a classification as an open parking deck is possible according to construction and fire protection guidelines. Constructive requirements of ventilation and sprinkler systems can therefore be reduced, resulting in lower construction cost. Furthermore, the stainless steel meshes contribute to an improvement of the image and acceptance of parking garages. "Poor lighting and bad air quality so far often caused an uncomfortable atmosphere in parking garages, reason for stress and the attempt to avoid this surrounding", mentions Joerg Uwe Goldbeck, Managing Director of Bielefeld Goldbeck GmbH. Now climbing plants bring green colour and cooling shadow to the garage in summer, whereas in winter the fallen leaves allow for daylight and sunrays deep into the garage's interior areas.

But a grid structure is not always the same. There are differences between a simple grid and a stainless steel cable mesh by Carl Stahl. X-TEND mesh is used for withstanding high loads and tensions, which is important especially in winter when snow and ice cover the mesh and in combination with wind loads increase the tension forces pulling on the mesh considerably. Due to the low self weight of the mesh and the flexibility of the high-tensile cables, this effect can be compensated and stability be granted even in extreme situations without introducing too high loads into the supporting structure.

Special X-TEND development in collaboration with EADS

At the new Berlin Airport "Berlin Brandenburg International", X-TEND mesh panels are used for the required separation of land and air side on airports, and thus make for the prescribed security lines. The necessary absorption of radar waves by the X-TEND mesh was used on the parking garages of the Airport after an intensive coordination with EADS, the aerospace company. Furthermore the X-TEND meshes are used to protect the parking garages' textile façade parts from vandalism. An example of a successful façade greening project is the parking garage in Potsdam's amusement area "Schiffsbauergasse", where 850m² of X-TEND mesh were installed in a double function of fall protection and façade greenery. The Telekom parking garage in Bonn is now being greened in a similar way.

Besides manufacturing, delivery and installation, Carl Stahl offers design, statical analysis and executional planning. The construction approvals (DIBT/Germany & ETA/Europe) of the X-TEND stainless steel cable mesh system and the I-SYS stainless steel cable system facilitate the planning process and stand for security in their applications.

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