This Solar Textile Turns Buildings Into Giant Energy Harvesters - Yanko Design

"The installation features a sky blue kite-like canopy made from Heliotex, a material that combines recycled polyester yarn woven with 150 organic photovoltaic solar cells. Think of it like wrapping a building in a smart, energy-generating skin that's as functional as it is beautiful. The pavilion spans 40 square meters with nearly 10 meters in height, housing 147 solar modules and an energy storage capacity of 3,000 watts."

"What makes this particularly genius is how van Dongen is rethinking where we put solar panels. Instead of those heavy, rigid panels we're used to seeing on rooftops, Heliotex weaves organic solar cells directly into fabric, making the material flexible in form and variable in color, pattern and density. It's basically the difference between slapping a bulky case on your phone and having protection built seamlessly into the device itself."

"The designer has been working on this solar textile technology for years, first developing it for wearable fashion like her Solar Shirt that could charge your phone. Now she's taken that same innovation and scaled it up to architectural proportions. Her studio has collaborated with Tentech over the past four years on developing this solar textile, which is now being applied for the first time on an architectural scale."

Umbra Pavilion uses Heliotex, a woven textile combining recycled polyester yarn with organic photovoltaic cells, to form a sky-blue, kite-like energy-generating canopy. The pavilion spans 40 square meters, reaches nearly 10 meters high, contains 147 solar modules and provides 3,000 watts of energy storage. Heliotex integrates organic solar cells directly into fabric, producing a flexible material that varies in color, pattern and density and can be shaped for architectural forms. The technology originated in wearable pieces like a Solar Shirt and has been scaled to building applications through a multi-year collaboration with Tentech, enabling textile facades as retrofit solutions.

Read at Yanko Design - Modern Industrial Design News