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- Negundo Innovation Centre
One of Belgium’s earliest coloured BIPV façades — built in 2011, still ahead of the curve
Colour as conviction — BIPV as building identity, not building addition
A hub for innovation that looks the part — and performs it
IDETA, the economic development agency for the Tournai region, commissioned a business and innovation centre designed to attract forward-thinking companies to Tournai-Orcq. The brief to Holoffe – Vermeersch et collaborateurs was explicit: the building had to communicate its purpose architecturally — a hub of clean innovation that looked nothing like a conventional office park.
The answer was a coloured BIPV spandrel façade by ISSOL® — at the time a rare choice in Belgium and in European commercial construction. Rather than treating solar energy as a rooftop utility, the project made it the defining face of the building: ISSOL® Square modules in a distinctive colour, spanning the full façade width, generating electricity while functioning as the building’s primary visual identity.
Colour, performance and architectural coherence — without compromise
- ISSOL® Square modules configured as opaque coloured spandrel panels — replacing conventional cladding with active solar glass across the façade
- Colour consistency achieved across all modules while retaining the monocrystalline cell performance that defines ISSOL® Square
- Spandrel position: panels cover the structural slab zones between glazed floors, the traditional location for opaque cladding — here generating power instead of simply screening
- Bureau Greisch provided structural and technical engineering integration, ensuring the BIPV system met all load, weathering and building envelope requirements
- Low-energy building status; the BIPV façade contributes directly to on-site electricity generation and supports the building’s overall energy performance
- Completed ~2011 — predating by more than a decade the wave of coloured BIPV now entering the mainstream of European architecture
Why ISSOL® Square: ISSOL® Square’s monocrystalline cell matrix is available in opaque spandrel configuration — allowing the full module face to carry a consistent architectural colour while the cells behind it continue to generate electricity. At Negundo, this meant the choice of colour was not a visual trick applied over a solar panel, but a property of the glass itself: durable, UV-stable, and inseparable from the building’s energy performance. Cladding and generation — the same element, the same surface.
Parameters for rapid evaluation
| Parameter | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Application | Coloured spandrel BIPV | Opaque solar glass replaces conventional spandrel cladding across the full façade |
| ISSOL® solution | ISSOL® Square | Monocrystalline cells; opaque spandrel configuration; consistent architectural colour |
| Façade type | Coloured spandrel | Panels cover slab zones between glazed floors — active solar glass in the cladding position |
| Building type | Innovation & business centre | Tournai-Orcq; IDETA development for regional economic cluster |
| Energy standard | Low-energy building | BIPV contributes to on-site generation and overall building performance |
| Architect | Holoffe – Vermeersch et collaborateurs | |
| Structural engineer | Bureau Greisch | Structural and technical integration of BIPV façade system |
| BIPV manufacturer | ISSOL® | Design & manufacturing of coloured photovoltaic spandrel glass modules |
| Completed | ~2011 | Among Belgium’s first commercial buildings with a coloured BIPV façade |
Colour that generates — architecture that performs
Photos © Luc Moulin / Architect 2016
