Sustainable Facade Design

The Building Envelope is an important element of environmental control influencing energy efficiency, health and comfort. Besides the roof, as the main frontier between interior and exterior, the façade works as an interface between climate changes and interiors. All over the history of architecture we can see the concern on the walls, where vernacular architecture always tries to respond to internal demands combined with external conditions. Taking into consideration these traditional principles, the challenge of nowadays façade is to integrate and apply new technologies with respect to ancient wisdom. In order to do so, we have to consider that:

1. Sustainability is only achieved when new efficient systems and products are socially accepted and supported by the users;
2. As the climate conditions change during the day and year, the façade has to respond dynamically to these changes;
3. Solutions can not be the same for different contexts; they have to be connected to the socio-economic reality of each country or region.

The proposed research tries to combine the German expertise on façades technology with the specific needs and climate conditions of Africa and South America with the goal to improve the energy efficiency of the built environment.

The research has either the goal to be carried out in close cooperation with companies and façade producers in order to guarantee the fast implementation to the market and so innovation. To do so is an important step to improve the producer’s standards in order to reduce the energy waste caused by existing inappropriate constructions which are quite common in South America and Africa.