Pathology of ventilated facades
Introduction
ULMA Architectural Solutions is a construction sector cooperative that creates prefabricated products for drainage and architecture. In the field of architecture it offers: ventilated facades, industrialized enclosures, personalized prefabricated and urban furniture. It is one of the 9 cooperative societies that make up ULMA, one of the largest business groups in northern Spain.[1].
History
ULMA Architectural Solutions is one of the 9 companies that make up the ULMA cooperative group whose origins date back to 1957, when six young mechanics set up a small workshop in Oñate (Guipúzcoa) to offer auxiliary services to the region's chocolate industry. In 1961, they established the Cooperativa Industrial Talleres ULMA S.C.I., whose name they formed with a letter of each of their last names, following the example of what the founders of Fagor Electrical Appliances had done.
Although their first business was based on chocolate wrapping machines (which today has given rise to the company ULMA Packaging"), in 1963 they patented the first JJEIP prefabricated scaffolding that was made in Spain and entered the construction business. As the business grew with products such as construction flanges and forklifts, the different businesses adopted a new and unique corporate image that took hold in the 90s.
In 1990, the ULMA Group decided to launch a new business called ULMA Polymer Concrete, dedicated to manufacturing prefabricated pieces of drainage channels and flashings in this material and dependent on ULMA Construction. In 1991, the new business set up its facilities and began to manufacture the first prefabricated pieces in polymer concrete, a material until then practically unknown in Spain. So much so that, at first, not knowing how to translate “polymer concrete” it was called “cast mineral”.
In 1996, the company stopped depending on ULMA Construction and was established as a company with the name ULMA Concrete Polymer. In 1997 it consolidated its own commercial network and in 2001 it began to manufacture and market ventilated facades that were added to products such as the architectural prefabricated elements that it already manufactured. Its headquarters, of 12,000m2, in the Zubillaga neighborhood of Oñate, was inaugurated in 2001.[2].