The Performance-Based Façade Design initiative was an insightful event that highlighted the balance between innovation and tradition in the façade industry. Its significance lies in the way it integrated cutting-edge advancements like AI with established methods, creating a comprehensive experience for participants.
Akira Kudou - Japan Sash Manufacturers Associatio (Windows & Doors）

Hamburg,_HafenCity,_Elbphilharmonie_(und_Mahatma-Gandhi-Brücke)_--_2016_--_3054-2_edited_e

Venice hosted the second edition of the Performance-Based Façade Design initiative. In 2024, on September 5th, Seminar's talks focused on Façade Reflections, bringing together 100 experts to discuss the latest innovations in façade design.
International speakers showcased the latest achievements in façades. Attendees stepped into the world of façade design, manufacturing, testing, research, and standardization alongside global pioneers, all within the breathtaking setting of the historic Scuola Grande dei Carmini. Built on the triumph of 2023, where experts from around the globe convened, this event elevated the diverse congregation of forward-thinkers even further!
The talks aimed to provide multiple perspectives and reflect on various aspects related to façades.

WORKSHOPS

Design Tools & AI for Façade Design

In the Performance-Based Façade Design Workshop on Design Tools & AI for Façade Design, attendees gained insights into two cutting-edge tools designed for creating value-engineered façade solutions.

These tools, developed by the workshop instructors, specifically focus on the design aspects of glass and frame elements in façades. Exploiting AI, automatic calculations, and engineering task automation, the instructors presented the functionality of these tools to empower participants in optimizing their façade designs.

Façades & Sustainability

The Performance-Based Façade Design Workshop on Façades and Sustainability explored diverse approaches encompassing façade design, maintenance, recycling, and recladding strategies, seamlessly integrating with sustainability objectives.

Rooted in circular economy principles, our team of experts explored the latest research and innovation, offering participants invaluable insights and guidance in selecting sustainable materials for optimal façade design. Throughout this workshop, attendees were empowered to make informed decisions, fostering harmonious sustainable practices within the ever-evolving landscape of sustainable architecture.

The off-site activities were organized in Altivole, in the Province of Treviso (Veneto Region). These are reserved for Seminar and Workshop participants.

Saturday September 7th at 10 AM, a group of participants had the opportunity to take private visits of Tomba Brion, an architectural monument designed by Architect Carlo Scarpa, and of Blackwater Testing Lab. During the visit to the Lab, participant learned about the its extensive testing capabilities, explore the equipment and methodologies used, and observe live demonstrations of testing processes for windows and doors.

OFF-SITE ACTIVITIES

SEMINAR

Façade Reflections

Blackwater Testing Lab & Tomba Brion

SEPTEMBER 5, 2:00 - 6:00 PM

SEMINAR PROGRAM
Façade Reflections

Angela Mejorin - Performance-Based Façade Design. Façade Reflections

Aulikki Sonntag - Transforming Environment: Challenge or Opportunity? Reflections on Façades

Alessandro Gambale - Computer Simulation for Wind-Induced Noise Analysis on Building Façade

Alessandra Luna Navarro - Façade Resilience Under Extreme Heat

Naofumi Isomoto - Performance Requirements for Skyscraper Façades in Japan. A Focus on Water Tightness

Martin Wunder & Randall Knox - Façade Access: Challenges and Design Integration in Complex Projects

Srdjan Avram - Concept to Reality: Façade of Cirrus and Cascade in Chicago

Paolo Rigone - Digital Culture and Façade Transparency: BEIC, the New Digital Library in Milan

Ricardo Dan Diaz - Façade Representation from Sketch to Augmented Reality

Angela Mejorin - Final Discussion and Closing Remarks

SEPTEMBER 6, 9:00 AM - 1:30 PM

WORKSHOPS PROGRAM
Design Tools & AI
for Façade Design

Angela Mejorin - Welcome & Scuola Grande dei Carmini Tour

Francesco Isaia - Design Tools & AI for Façade Design. Introduction of the instructors

Ingo Stelzer & Michael Kraus - Design and Analysis of Glass Façade Elements using AI

Jacopo Montali & Carlos Pascual Agulló - ASquared: No More FEM to Model Multi-Layered Façade Elements

Façades & Sustainability

Massimo Rossetti - Façades & Sustainability

Iva Ganev - Considerations on Circular Economy for the European Building Glass Sector

Miriam Schuster - Circular Glass: Opportunities and Challenges

Robert-Jan van Santen - Optimization of the Energy Balance of Bay Windows. Design Sober Buildings

Angela Mejorin - Closing Remarks

SEPTEMBER 7, 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM

OFF-SITE ACTIVITIES PROGRAM
Blackwater Testing Lab
and Tomba Brion

The Full Story

This is your About page. This space is a great opportunity to give a full background on who you are, what you do and what your site has to offer. Your users are genuinely interested in learning more about you, so don’t be afraid to share personal anecdotes to create a more friendly quality. Every website has a story, and your visitors want to hear yours. This space is a great opportunity to provide any personal details you want to share with your followers. Include interesting anecdotes and facts to keep readers engaged. Double click on the text box to start editing your content and make sure to add all the relevant details you want site visitors to know. If you’re a business, talk about how you started and share your professional journey. Explain your core values, your commitment to customers and how you stand out from the crowd. Add a photo, gallery or video for even more engagement.

2024 Speakers

Aulikki Sonntag - Chief Business Development Officer, Staticus

With an international background, Aulikki Sonntag’s professional experience reaches from technical design to executive façade work throughout all project planning phases. She has successfully executed a large variety of façade systems, ranging from high-rise unitized to complex custom design. Pursuing innovative design solutions and high efficiency in performance characterizes her holistic approach to the building envelope. Aulikki Sonntag is working out of Basel-based STATICUS Switzerland Ltd. Her focus is the design and development of project and climate specific facades, using an Interactive Building Process, interfacing Architecture, Energy Design, and Structural Engineering.

Alessandra Luna Navarro - Assistant Professor, TU Delft

Alessandra is Assistant Professor in Façade Design and Engineering at TU Delft and co-founder at Building Impulse. She has been Visiting Scholar at CBE at UC Berkeley in 2024. Her research revolves around human-building interaction, in particular on human-façade interaction. She is a chartered engineer in Italy and the UK and she has been working on different façades, from modern flagship buildings such as “La Nuvola” (Rome) to the refurbishment of historical buildings. She has a Masters’ degree in Building Engineering and Architecture from La Sapienza University of Rome and a MPhil in Energy Technologies from the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. She obtained a PhD from the University of Cambridge and her research was awarded with the Future Cities Fellowship at the University of Cambridge and funded by Arup, Permasteelisa and EPSRC.

Alessandro Gambale - CEO, BuildWind

Alessandro Gambale holds a Master's Degree in Aerospace Engineering from "La Sapienza" University, Rome (Italy). He worked as a research engineer for the Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (Belgium), where he was involved in applied research projects dealing with microfluidics and environmental fluid dynamics. He later became a research and teaching assistant at UMONS University (Belgium), where he investigated advanced combustion techniques within a research program of the International Energy Agency. He co-founded BuildWind in 2018.

Carlos Pascual Agulló - Research Associate, University of Cambridge

Carlos Pascual Agulló was Research Associate at the Glass & Façade Technology Research (gFT) Group at the University of Cambridge. He led experimental and analytical research on composite glass panels that have the potential to meet architectural, building physics and structural performance requirements in building façade applications. He joined gFT from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne where he completed his PhD thesis on translucent load-bearing GFRP envelopes for daylighting and solar cell integration in building construction. Prior to this Carlos graduated in Civil Engineering at Universitat Politècnica de València in 2008 and worked as structural engineer in the design of GFRP structures for building and bridge construction. Today, Carlos is R&D Director at Bellapart where he leads research on the development of slender and structural composite metal-glass panels for building envelopes.

Ingo Stelzer - Senior Technical Program Manager, Kuraray Europe

Ingo Stelzer is Senior Technical Program Manager at Kuraray Europe GmbH. With more than 20 years of professional experience in the glass and façade industry he has been involved into the realization of many projects and R&D programs worldwide. He is also an active member of DIN & EN Code Work groups in Europe. In year 2000 he received his engineering degree at the University of Hanover.
Positions before joining Kuraray have been at DuPont / GLS as a Senior Consultant and at the Seele-Group as a Technical Director.

Iva Ganev - Environment and Climate Policy Manager, Glass for Europe

Iva Ganev has been working in European affairs in Brussels since 2006. Since the beginning of her career, she has taken on building an expertise in the high-stake climate and environment field. After managing the Environment department of a consultancy, she was invited to develop the climate strategy and advocacy of an EU association, where she accompanied in particular the EU ETS compliance and decarbonisation projects of an industrial sector. Then, following a return to the consultancy world and some exciting projects, she took on her current role of Environment and Climate Policy Manager for the EU flat glass association in 2021, at pivotal times for the glass and glazing sector. Her expertise is at the crossroads of EU environment and climate policy, and industrial advancement and compliance.

Jacopo Montali - Founder, Algorixon

Jacopo is a construction professional with a mixed background in façade engineering, structural engineering and computer science. After a master’s degree in civil engineering at the University of Parma (Italy) in 2009, he worked for 15 years on various project across the globe by providing non-standard solutions to unique engineering problems. Meanwhile, he moved in 2014 to the UK for a PhD in Engineering at the University of Cambridge, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Laing O'Rourke plc. During the PhD, he developed digital apps with the goal of integrating various design & manufacturing criteria for the design of prefabricated façade panels. He is a chartered engineer in Italy and in the UK at the Institution of Civil Engineers, a Member of the Society of Facade Engineering and in 2019 he founded Algorixon.

Martin Wunder - Partner, Global BMU

Martin Wunder is a Partner at Global BMU, renowned for his expertise in the mechanical and industrial engineering sectors. With a rich history in operational leadership and technical prowess, Martin is skilled in negotiation, budgeting, and operations management. His strong entrepreneurial acumen and comprehensive knowledge in engineering make him a pivotal asset in driving business growth and innovation. Martin holds a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Dortmund, and he has further enhanced his strategic capabilities as a graduate of INSEAD, one of the world's leading business schools. Previously, Martin excelled as the Regional Director for Europe & South America at CoxGomyl, where he successfully led expansions and managed diverse teams across international projects.

Michael Kraus - Founder | CEO, M&M Network-ING UG

Michael Anton Kraus studied Civil Engineering at the Technical University Munich. He was selected (2012-2014) for the Honours program of the Bavarian Graduate School of Computational Engineering (BGCE). Michael worked at the Institute and Laboratory for Structural Engineering at the Bundeswehr University Munich and his PhD thesis (2019) was on “Machine Learning Techniques for the Material Parameter Identification of Laminated Glass in the Intact and Post-Fracture State“. In 2020 he joined the Stanford University CA/USA to collaborate as Post-Doc researcher in the field of applying AI on modelling of materials and structures. His research focuses on the application of uncertainty quantification and sensitivity analysis, material modelling and AI / Machine Learning to practical engineering problems, especially in the field of structural (glass) engineering.

Miriam Schuster - Head of Glass and Polymer Unit, Institute of Structural Mechanics and Design

Miriam Schuster studied civil engineering at the University of Luxembourg and TU Darmstadt (2014). After working at the Luxembourg engineering firm Schroeder&Associés, she returned to TU Darmstadt in February 2016 as a research assistant at the Institute of Structural Mechanics and Design (ISM+D). In January 2022, she successfully defended her PhD on "Characterization of laminated safety glass interlayers - thermorheology, crystallinity and viscoelasticity". Since then, she has been working as Head of the glass and polymer group at ISM+D, and as a postdoc on the sustainability and circularity of glass in construction. She is a member of the standardization committee "Glass in Civil Engineering" and represents the institute in the German Association of Structural Engineering.

Naofumi Isomoto - Performance Research Department Manager, Japan Sash Manufacturers Association

Isomoto Naofumi joined Fujisash Co., Ltd. since graduating from Kanagawa University in 2004. He began in the Product Development Department and since 2021 he has been working in the Performance Research Department. He conducts extensive performance evaluations for numerous building envelope solutions, including major projects like Sapporo Sosei Square and Shinagawa Development Project. He has played a key role in developing several Japanese industrial standards and , to define testing methods and calculation standards for diagonal deformability and thermal performance of curtain walling. Since 2022, he has also been representing Fujisash on the global stage as part of ISO/TC162 Working Group 5 Curtain Walling.

Paolo Rigone - Technical Director, UNICMI

Paolo Rigone earned a PhD in Building Ergotechnics Engineering and since 2007, he has served as an Associate Professor at the Politecnico di Milano, teaching courses related to building envelope design and engineering. Since 1989, he has been a partner at Studio di Ingegneria Rigone, focusing on building envelope technologies. He worked as a consultant in major construction projects in Milan, such as the renovation of the Pirelli Skyscraper, the Porta Nuova complex, and the CityLife development. Since 2000, he has been the technical director of UNICMI, focusing on metal construction and the development of technical standards for building envelopes. He contributes to national and international technical committees, including serving as the Convenor for the Working Groups CEN/TC33/WG6 and ISO/TC162/WG5 on curtain walling.

Randall Knox - Project Manager, Global BMU

Responsible for project management for Façade Access solutions for large scale projects, as well as design and construction documentation. Extensive experience with Building Information Modeling and design visualization, including development of parametric models of Facade Access equipment and systems. Previously, Randall held the position of Designer in the Facade Access Group at Lerch Bates. Randall holds a degree in the Design of the Environment from the University of Pennsylvania, plus an MBA with a concentration in Finance from the Seton Hall University Stillman School of Business, and has worked extensively to apply advanced systems and methods including Critical Path Method and Business Case methodologies to project management.

Ricardo Dan Diaz - Co-Founder, The Façade Studio

Ricardo is cofounder at the Façade Studio, a company based in Mexico City dedicated to solve façade projects focusing on energy efficiency, safety, affordability and design intent compliance of the façade. Ricardo studied Architecture at University of Colima, Mexico and as an Architect, he specialized in energy simulations to determine façade systems performance. He has led teams at The Façade Studio trough the design and study of the façade for commercial, residential, retail and hospitality projects along Mexico working with interdisciplinary teams from Mexico and the US. Ricardo has taught courses at the ITC (Technological Institute of Construction) on the Specialty for Sustainability on Edification. At the University of Colima he taught the course of Architectural Representation, an has lectured conferences in different Universities across Mexico.

Robert-Jan van Santen - Partner | Co-Founder, VS-A.group

Robert-Jan van Santen graduated in Architecture from UPA3 Versailles, France. He worked for 4 years in “Atelier de Paris” with Renzo Piano. He set up his own consulting firm for building envelopes, “Bureau d’études façade van SANTEN” in 1989, which later became “van SANTEN & Associés” in 1999, and later VS-A in 2010. Under his supervision came the establishments of VS-A.HK in 2011, VS-A.KR in 2013, VS-A. SZ in 2018. In the last decade, he was instrumental in the formation of VS-A Design, which hosts VS-A’s R&D activities. The design outputs are regularly patented. The Korean start-up company, UBLO was jointly set up with Naree Kim. He was honored with the Silver Medal from the French Académie d’Architecture for Research and Technique in 2008. In 2019, one of his leaded projects “Vanke Binhai Cloud Center” in Shenzhen, CHINA was awarded by CTBUH Façade Engineering Award 2019.

Srdjan Avram - Director, bKL Architecture

Srdjan Avram is an architect with over 20 years of experience, specializing in high-rise projects and proficient in managing all phases of project development. His extensive portfolio in the US includes educational and institutional facilities, multi-family residential buildings, and mixed-use developments, many of which have received LEED Gold and LEED Silver certifications.
Srdjan began his architectural studies at the University of Belgrade and continued at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he earned his master’s degrees in architecture. He is a licensed architect in Illinois and holds memberships with the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB), and is a CSI Certified Construction Specifier (CCS).

Seminar & Workshop location: Scuola Grande dei Carmini, Venice

The Scuola Grande dei Carmini is one of the eight Great Schools in Venice, situated in the sestiere of Dorsoduro, near Campo Santa Margherita. It consists of two floors adorned with magnificent wooden works and stunning ceilings decorated with stuccos and canvases. The ground floor houses the Cappella, a picturesque space with monochrome paintings and a precious altar. This is where the seminar and workshop took place in 2024.

A magnificent golden double baroque stairway leads to the Sala Capitolare, where the ceiling is adorned with artworks by Tiepolo. The Archivio and Albergo rooms evoke the seventeenth century with their decorated ceilings, painted walls, and marvelous inlaid marble floors. Some of the gatherings related to the initiative will take place in these rooms.

SEPTEMBER 5, 2:00 - 6:00 PM

SEMINAR PROGRAM Façade Reflections

SEPTEMBER 6, 9:00 AM - 1:30 PM

WORKSHOPS PROGRAM Design Tools & AI for Façade Design

Façades & Sustainability

SEPTEMBER 7, 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM

OFF-SITE ACTIVITIES PROGRAM Blackwater Testing Lab and Tomba Brion

The Full Story

2024 Speakers

Seminar & Workshop location: Scuola Grande dei Carmini, Venice

SEMINAR PROGRAM
Façade Reflections

WORKSHOPS PROGRAM
Design Tools & AI
for Façade Design

OFF-SITE ACTIVITIES PROGRAM
Blackwater Testing Lab
and Tomba Brion