Glass facades: present and future challenges

Nowadays facade designers are challenged by a considerable number of performance requirements challenge, among others the continuing search for more transparency, often in combination with restrictive energy requirements or with extreme loading conditions such as bomb blasts: Four selected projects presented in this paper demonstrate how these challenges can be successfully addressed in the design process. However, despite the sophisticated engineering tools available nowadays, the article also shows where (and why) more innovation and research work is needed in the future. These innovations are required to allow for significant reductions in the consumption of resources and in the production of emissions and other forms of waste by the building industry. One way to tackle this challenging task is the use of more dynamic, adaptive facades, which are able to react to changes in environmental conditions and in user comfort requirements. Even if this approach requires a certain input of energy and a higher degree of complexity, it is expected to substantially contribute to a more sustainable use of resources in the future.