SUNTEX
Lightweight solar textile for architecture
weaving, solar fabric, textile architecture, energy harvesting
Solar textile for energetic, cool, and lively public spaces, events and cities
2022
What if textiles could harness the sun?
SUNTEX weaves solar energy into the world around us. This innovative solar textile for architectural applications combines energy generation with cooling shade, comfort, and expressive materiality.
This new material combines the flexibility, formability and variability of textile with the energy-generating potential of solar technology.
By weaving organic photovoltaic modules (OPV) with high-tenacity yarns, the lightweight textile can be used in tensile architecture, textile shade structures and façades that harvest solar energy while providing sun shading.
SUNTEX integrates solar power in a way that is not only functional but also culturally relevant and visually striking thanks to the variability of the woven structure. By merging design, technology, and sustainability, SUNTEX offers a fresh perspective on how solar energy can shape the future of resilient urban environments.
Photography: Anna Wetzel
SUNTEX façade
Designed as a modular system, SUNTEX offers architects formal flexibility that other much heavier and less flexible solar technologies do not. This means that SUNTEX can be applied to places and surfaces with many hours of sunshine that currently remain unused, for example the glass facades of high-rise buildings. A speculative design study on the Westraven building in Utrecht has shown that SUNTEX, installed on three of the four facades, could power the entire lighting of the building year-round. Next to the qualitative benefit of harvesting energy, the aesthetic integration of SUNTEX on buildings can increase social awareness and acceptance of solar energy around us.
SUNTEX pavilion
We took part in the bidding process for the Dutch pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka. The project proposal developed with an interdisciplinary team, takes pride in second-place achievement. Although the pavilion will not be realised, it features an example of Suntex’s potential application as a colourful, energy generating facade.
The submission “Let’s Turn Things Around” showcases the Netherlands’ vision for an attractive, clean, green, and joyful urban future. In a colourful and 100% circular pavilion, visitors collaborate towards a sustainable future by using bicycles.The architectural design by Overtreders W features a wooden tent-like structure adorned with a façade made of Suntex which would power the lighting of the building at night. The fully circular pavilion would be constructed on a solid rammed earth foundation, utilising locally excavated soil, tinted blue with Japanese indigo pigment.
The team of “Let’s turn things around” consisted of:
Kubik, Overtreders W, Tinker imagineers, Tentech, Urbanberry Design
Would you like to apply SUNTEX in your product or industry, send us a message!
This development is kindly supported by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy and by the Eurostars programme by Eureka.
