SEFAR® Architecture's TENARA® Fabric Achieves Nautical Aesthetic for Coastal City

DEPEW, NY...The City of Newport Beach now has a 17-acre Civic Center complex – featuring a TENARA® Fabric façade from SEFAR®Architecture – to match the surrounding community’s coastal lifestyle, beauty and commitment to sustainability.

Newport Beach, CA, is both a bustling residential community and popular tourist destination. Its city limits contain the largest recreational harbor on the West Coast and a variety of arts and cultural institutions. Yet until this year, the city, which encourages green building, operated out of an obsolete, sprawling City Hall that failed to meet seismic safety and ADA standards.

But now, with contributions from SEFAR Architecture, Newport Beach’s newly-completed, LEED Silver-certified City Hall epitomizes the city’s identity as a waterfront community. The main building’s roof forms a wave, while a curved fabric “sail,” made from SEFAR Architecture’s 4T40HF TENARA Fabric, envelops the adjoining double-height council chambers. When viewed through the TENARA Fabric facade, the sheen of the chambers’ zinc cladding creates an effect reminiscent of light shimmering on the ocean.

The building reflects Newport Beach’s commitment to living and building green. The TENARA Fabric facade allows for up to 40% visual light transmission making the space feel more open while reducing solar heat gain into the building’s interior. Moreover, SEFAR Architecture TENARA Fabric is free from potentially toxic plasticizers. A lack of plasticizers reduces environmental impact and provides sustainability through longevity. SEFAR Architecture fabrics maintain high tensile strength and aesthetic appearance in the long term.

TENARA Fabric and its inherent characteristics also allowed for easy installation in a difficult, ambitious tensile architecture application.

"TENARA Fabric is flexible and robust, which made it very easy for us to complete the work in a timely manner.” says Erik Jarvie, Sales Engineer for Eide Industries, Inc., the design engineer on the project. “The installation went off without a hitch. SEFAR Architecture provided us with all of the technical information and support we needed, ensuring that the ambitious facade look and perform as it should.”

SEFAR Architecture’s 4T40HF TENARA Fabric is woven from PTFE yarn and coated with PTFE. This composition provides extremely high resistance to blemishing and degradation that far surpasses all other materials of its kind. In addition, the TENARA Fabric is ASTM E84 – Class A fire-rated.

To learn more about SEFAR Architecture’s TENARA Fabric, visit http://www.tenarafabric.com.

Newport Beach’s City Council held an international design competition to select the Civic Center’s architects. The project team includes architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, San Francisco, fabric design & engineering Eide Industries, Inc., construction managers C.W. Jackson, Pasadena, CA, landscape architects Peter Walker & Partners, Berkeley, CA, engineers Arup, Boston, and consultants LSA Associates, Irvine, CA. It was completed in May 2013.