Amsterdam, October 2011 - The Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, Netherlands) at the moment is in the final phase of construction and completion of a major renovation and expansion project. Important part of this project is the composite exterior skin of an adjacent additional building. Right next to the historical brick building of 1895 is now an impressive white facade made of massive composite panels. The whole composite construction is said to become the largest composite-clad building in the world and by the Amsterdam citizens already has the nickname "the bathtub".

The 100 meters high facade the design by Benthem Crouwel Architects (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) requested an exterior solution  which would have a minimal thermal expansion to maintain seamless appearance of the facade, regardless of the outside temperature.

Euroresins' customer Holland Composites (Lelystad, The Netherlands) produced the panels using specially formulated DSM resin which is also fire retardant and unidirectional fabrics provided as a gift to the museum by the company Tejin (Tokyo, Japan). The engineering company Solico B.V. did the complete analyis and structural engineering of the composite facade and decided that the vinyl ester resin of DSM would deliver the optimal quality for the RTM process by which the panels for the inner and outer skins of the sandwich construction were produced.

Copyright: Benthem Crouwel Architekten BV