Façades

The paper presents an outline of the development of external surface treatments of the walls of rural and small-town individual housing construction in the easternmost region of Slovakia, in Zemplín. Like the houses themselves, their facades have undergone a dynamic development during the 20th century, from ancient clay greases throught the spread of lime plasters with a stylized plastic facade, modernist abstract structures, a postmodern expansion of decorativeness, moderate unitary uniformity similar to the initial state, till the attempts to "return to nature". The information base of the paper are mainly plasters itself. At the time of their inception, they were not researched and the author could not capture any master plasterer active at the end of the 1960s, when their development culminated. Today, these remarkable finishes of vernacular dwellings throughout the last century have been massively abolished under the unscrupulous wave of thermal insulation, and with them evidence of the craftsmanship, fantasy and aesthetic taste of generations of our immediate ancestors disappears.

The building envelope plays a crucial role in saving or consuming energy, depending on the type of the envelope
and design. Architects and engineers need to consider many issues when working with envelope designs, including
environmental issues, aesthetic appearance, occupant comfort, and view; these aspects make the envelope a
multifunctional component, thus the integration approach is the optimal method to address envelope design. In the
last decade we have witnessed the inclusion of the kinetic envelope in many typologies of buildings. Many scholars
believe the kinetic envelope improves the environmental performance of the building. The purpose of this paper is
to review the current practice and development of the kinetic envelope and to investigate its role in the improvement
of energy performance in buildings.

In today’s world, with the expansion of concrete jungle and increase in carbon dioxide day today, an increase in vegetation and plantation is equally mandatory to decrease carbon dioxide levels and bring down the unbearable temperature rise. But where is the space to plant trees or vegetation in this concrete jungle?
By producing Bio-receptive concrete we can grow small fauna/ flora on concrete by adding a special type of cement which can decrease the proportion of carbon dioxide and can be used as aesthetic pre-cast walls for facades which would even eradicate problems faced in vertical gardening like high initial and maintenance cost. Almost 80% of the natural production of oxygen is carried out by algae (cryptogams) which are majorly living undersea/ oceans. By mixing Magnesium Phosphate, Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC - 53), Silica Sand (As Filler), Water (Hydrating agent), Vinegar (To maintain pH up to 7), Urea (To maintain pH up to 7). Thus, the concrete produced from the above ingredients will have a pH varying from 6 to 9 depending on the proportion. Growing small vegetation on concrete panels without damaging by providing a suitable environment for the vegetation to grow like maintaining the pH levels of concrete suitable for the growth of vegetation on it. Through this beautiful façade panels can be developed for buildings.

Building façades play a major role in improving the effects of outdoor environment conditions on indoor comfort conditions. Façades, which are designed as energy efficiency, are created according to different performance parameters and can offer solutions appropriate for the climatic condition. This paper aims to describe and highlight the role of design and application determinants in building façade types according to energy efficiency in different climatic classes. For this purpose, 12 building façade types in different climate types were investigated and analyzed by a purposive or judgmental sampling technique. Façade analyses have been carried out by considering double skin, adaptive, photovoltaic panel, vertical green, media and structural membrane façades created as a result of developing technological opportunities. Balance of heat loss and gain, preventing overheating, providing daylight and natural ventilation, active and mechanical solutions for climate-sensitive, noise control, recycling and evaluating the initial investment cost are presented. With examinations, it has been determined that different façade systems are innovative construction systems in creating energy efficiency. It has been concluded that the effect of improving indoor comfort conditions of the building by controlling the outdoor environment conditions with the construction of different facade systems is very important in the architectural process. With the development of technology and smart systems, the impact of the façades on the climate analysis and energy efficient design strategies will be much more important in the future.

Bağdat Avenue, which was a summer place on the Anatolian side of Istanbul until the mid-1950s started to transform into a permanent residential district after this date while construction activities accelerated and apartments were built in the region after the Condominium Law was enacted in 1965. The "1/5000 Bostancı Erenköy Zoning Construction Plan" was introduced at the end of 1972, which allows denser and higher construction in parcels except for the ones on the coast and Bağdat Avenue, so apartment designs started to change in the region. For this reason, the apartments built between 1965 and 1973 are regarded as important documents. They bear common characteristic features with their rational forms, large balcony and window openings, flowerpots, railings, sunshades, decorative wall panels, dynamic geometric façade compositions, and similar façade materials. These features emerge as important elements defining the urban character of the region. In this regard, questioning the authentic features, distinguishing them from the contemporaneous apartments in Turkey, and evaluating them in the context of the architectural tendencies of the era become important.
The aim of the article emerges as documenting the façade characteristics of the apartments built between 1965 and 1973 at Bağdat Avenue, evaluating their authentic characteristics within the context of world architecture as well as the architecture of Turkey. This evaluation enables to question whether they designate a defined urban identity to their region. Within the scope of the study, 15 buildings were selected and documented with photographs while building data were gathered from the Archives of Kadıköy Municipality. Façade characteristics of the selected apartments were analyzed and compared with the contemporaneous apartments in Turkey to determine the similarities and differences, and they were assessed in the context of the architectural tendencies of the era. The façade characteristics were studied under the titles: building mass features, characteristic architectural elements, and material features. The shaping of the mass and window openings; flowerpots, railings, sunshades, wall panels, and sculptural elements; usage of travertine, marble, wood, and metal; were examined under these headings. The analyses were assisted with figures and similarities as well as differences with other apartments were explained. In addition, the architectural elements were interpreted in relation to the contemporaneous architectural attitudes. The analyses led to the following inferences:
-Contrary to the central districts of Istanbul, these residences have lesser floors as well as wider windows and balconies displaying the summer resort characteristics of the area.
-Although they have common features with other apartments such as rational building mass, wide façade openings, stylized railings, and sculptural elements, they bear distinguishing characteristics such as dynamic compositions, flowerpots, sunshades, artworks, and different materials.
-These authentic features define an architectural language and constitute an urban character.
-Despite their rational planning, as a result of the dynamism and complexity of the façade, excess usage of flowerpots and sunshades, and geometric compositions, it can be assessed that Late Modern principles were adopted while Brutalism is also monitored in a limited sense.
-As the façades bear local elements like travertine cladding, sunshades, and wall panels, a regionalist attitude, which is employed together with universal architectural values, can be observed.
The apartments built between 1965 and1973 in Bağdat Avenue have dynamic façade compositions despite their rational masses while they bear local components. In this regard, these residences dwell upon assembling local circumstances with universal values and endeavor to make a connection with their place. They distinguish from other apartments with their dynamic façade compositions, employment of travertine and wood, excess usage of flowerpots or sunshades, usage of sculptural elements and artworks, and constitute an architectural pattern indigenous to the region, which makes them an important part of the urban characteristic of Bağdat Avenue. Within this study, it has been aimed to contribute to the literature by documenting the façade characteristics of the apartments constructed between 1965 and 1973 at Bağdat Avenue, which are architectural heritage in danger due to the urban transformation of the region. In addition, the apartments in question have been evaluated together with other examples from Turkey to exhibit their authentic features and have been discussed in the context of global architecture so that an evaluation can be made in terms of the contemporaneous architectural tendencies. These evaluations have been meant to exhibit the importance of these buildings within the architectural context.

The purpose of this article is to extract the fighter from his warrior function and immerse him in a semantic field relating to the preservation of the integrity of the sacred; to consider him less as a warrior than as a "guardian" and this in a spiritual dimension. The focus is on the two fighters carved on the sides of the portal of the cathedral church Santa Maria Matricolare in Verona, usually identified as Roland and Olivier. Extracted from their literary context, the two Carolingian paladins fit perfectly into the Marian imagery of the portal. Roland and Oliver, as personifications of virtues close to Strength and Temperance, participate in a dogmatic monumental image whose aim to give a face to the identity of the building, the duomo of the city, itself monumental image of the Church of Verona.

Cet article a pour  objectif d’extraire le combattant de sa fonction guerrière pour le plonger dans un champ sémantique relatif à la sauvegarde de l’intégrité du sacré ; de le considérer moins comme un guerrier que comme « un gardien » et ce dans une dimension spirituelle. Le propos s’axe sur les deux combattants sculptés sur les côtés du portail de l’église cathédral Santa Maria Matricolare de Vérone, habituellement identifiés comme Roland et Olivier. Extraits de leur contexte littéraire, les deux paladins carolingiens s’intègre ici parfaitement à l’imagerie mariale du portail. Personnifications de vertus proches de la Force et de la Tempérance, Roland et Olivier, participent à une image monumentale dogmatique dont la finalité est de donner un visage à l’identité de l’édifice, le duomo de la ville, lui-même monumentalisation et figuration de l’Église véronaise.

Quelle importance faut-il donner à l'enveloppe dans la définition d'une architecture ? Que faut-il d'ailleurs entendre par enveloppe architecturale et quels en sont les éléments constitutifs ? Sont abordés ici seulement les deux plus classiques d'entre eux : la façade et la fenêtre. L’article montre comment nous nous sommes mis à voir dans les architectures un devant et un derrière, en faisant toujours du devant, c'est-à-dire de la façade, l'élément privilégié de l'enveloppe architecturale, pensée avant tout de manière visuelle. L’article s’interroge également sur le rôle que doivent jouer les fenêtres : pourquoi ne pourrait-on pas s'allonger dans les fenêtres et séjourner dans les ouvertures ? pourquoi les fenêtres ne sont-elles pensées que pour nos yeux ? De la façade à la fenêtre, il semble que la culture occidentale ait installé le primat du visuel dans l'expérience architecturale, faisant des architectures des tableaux qu'on admire ou qu'on déteste de l'extérieur, et qui donnent à voir et à contempler de l'intérieur. Quelle enveloppe architecturale pour les bâtiments de demain ?

By the time Giorgio Vasari wrote his chapter on the Italian sgraffito technique ("Degli sgraffiti delle case…") in 1550, approximately 250 years had already passed since its invention by Florentine plaster workers. The range of motifs, which had been very limited during the Trecento, developed over the following centuries—driven by builders' competition for aesthetic distinction, the creativity of highly qualified artists, and a high-performance culture of craftsmanship. In seventeenth-century Italy the sgraffito technique fell into disuse; it gained renewed interest only in the nineteenth century and culminated in the second half of that century in a veritable sgraffito renaissance.
On the basis of many examples presented mainly in chronological order, the paper outlines the use of sgraffito in Italy from the thirteenth to the twentieth century. Besides aspects of technology and practical application, the paper considers problems of builders' and artists' interests and the motifs specific to regions and epochs.

This study explains the façade pattern's design effect on the architectural performance of building. A discussion of performance from the structural, environmental and aesthetical point of view was shown. By studying the façade pattern design effect on architectural performance to determine the feature of the building, by studying the digital patterns design characteristics, then the role of performance studies in pattern design through its evaluation levels, by selecting some case studies to achieve the main relation between them.

Contemporary architecture should focus on the ability to react, adapt, and change rapidly according to the environment or profiles (Oosterhuis, 2003). This flexibility/adaptability has materialised in recent times in various ways. Today the façade is the place where we most often experience the concept of adaptability. Within this framework, the façade returns to communicate through smart technologies and adaptive systems, mainly thanks to dynamic devices. We often deal with dynamic or kinetic façades. This paper aims to examine the relationships that contemporary dynamic façades shall determine with the context and with the users through three survey instruments: the shape of the dynamic elements, the pattern, and the colour of the façade. The investigation will be made with reference to examples of recent buildings and architectural projects.
Keywords: architectural design, dynamic façades, kinetic façades, environmental quality

First published as:
Opper, A. Breaking Johannesburg’s architectural fourth wall: An interrogation of three façade-conditions as interstitial sites of appearance, reality and possibility. In M. Toledo Silva (Ed). Dramaturgias do Real: 59-89. Impressões de Minas: Belo Horizonte.

ABSTRACT:
This paper highlights and compares – in the context of Johannesburg – the entrenched planning and architectural roles played by line, boundary and territory. Specifically, it demonstrates how these conceptions of division are activated and reinforced via the ostensibly harmless device of the architectural façade. Newer façades tend to be scripted and older facades re-scripted not as interfaces of assimilation and accessibility, but as often paranoid and inherently opaque surfaces. Such façades, via obstructive and filtering tendencies, stand in the service of keeping post-apartheid South African (SA) society as unequal as it is notorious for being (even 25 years after the country’s celebrated transition to ‘democracy’).

ISBN: 978-85-63612-60-1


The paper serves as an analysis of some of the ways in which façades are mobilised as power-laden devices of separation. The text will also make clear the complicity of the mainstream architectural profession in the continuing proliferation of façades as codified separators of a SA society; a society already so damaged by apartheid’s pervasive and deeply architecturally inscribed legacies of political, social, economic and race-based engineered separation. Newer forms of constructed notions of ‘reasons’ for separation have emerged from SA’s general and problematic insistence on treating cultural and geographic differences with suspicion. In this vein, xenophobia has manifested in different degrees since an extreme flare-up of this phenomenon in the widely publicised events of 2008. Gentrification, of as much concern in the global south as it is in the global north, is another constructor of difference hinging on the façade as a differentiating filter, an included or excluder.

A discussion of three iterations of the façade condition – attached to different scales, typologies, urban and suburban contexts – shows how these ‘skins’ of buildings do not, however, have to remain irrevocably stuck in the above paradigm of separating and isolating. Façades are able to be mobilised – even reconfigured – via a combination of layers of design and performativity, as instructive, generative and inclusive thresholds of productive architectural undoing.

The context for this argument is provided by my role as, one the one hand, critical spatial practitioner and, on the other, educator at the University of Johannesburg. The education of young architects-in-the-making offers a valuable opportunity to build counter-identities and - roles for architects, as empathetic practitioners. Such a reformulation of the traditionally entrenched heroic architectural habitus equips architects with an attitude which enables them to confidently challenge the heavy hand of what SA’s largely developer-driven market ‘expects’ architects to blindly deliver. Generally, this developer-led mode means that SA’s built environments, and the architects who design these, succumb to dumbed-down monolithic neoliberal expectations of what developers believe cities should look like and how participation in them is defined (often around notions of exclusion, rather than much needed social dialogue and universal access to spaces).

The three chosen projects – although specific to their respective contexts – lend themselves to comparison and to relational readings, through and across each other. They challenge the generally lazy ways in which architects, serving the dominant neoliberal urban model, cop-out of the opportunities façades offer. Façades can namely serve as far more inclusive, participative, intelligent and truly democratic interfaces of a society still in crisis because of the narrow ways in which it defines and codifies binaries such a ‘poverty’ and ‘wealth’ and ‘belonging’ and ‘not-belonging’. This analysis and presentation of three carefully chose case studies highlights the problematic and continued failure of architecture to address persisting antisocial neoliberalist tendencies of exclusion. At the same time though it demonstrates that, via the vehicles of architectural education and artistic practice, the façade is able to act as a site of radically social possibilities.

ISBN: 978-85-63612-60-1

Kalkmörtel gilt gemeinhin als Material, dessen Beitrag zur Kunst des Trecento sich in seiner Verwendung als Putzträger bei einer Freskierung erschöpft. Hierbei wird jedoch das  diesem Material innewohnende Potential zur eigenständigen künstlerischen Gestaltung übersehen: Im Florenz des 14. Jahrhunderts entwickelten Handwerker aus dem konventionellen, aus dem Werkprozess hervorgegangenen Bandfugendekor ein in Putz geschabtes, auf subtilen Unterschieden in der Putzoberfläche beruhendes Bild isodomen Quadermauerwerks, das als ‚Urbild‘ der Sgraffito-Kunst bis ins 16. Jahrhundert deren Grundmotiv blieb. Die Anwendung der neuen Technik ging mit einer raschen Ausweitung des bildlichen Repertoires einher, die ihrerseits die Ansprüche an die Technik hinsichtlich der zu erzielenden Wirkung veränderte. Die in diesem Zusammenhang wichtigsten Neuerungen - die ab der Mitte des Quattrocento übliche Graufärbung - erhöhten zwar den Kontrast und setzten die Wände stärker gegen andere Formen der Fassadengestaltung ab, änderten aber nichts an der maßgeblichen Rolle des Grundmaterials Kalkmörtel. Dessen Zusammensetzung und Charakteristika bestimmten im Wesentlichen die Ausführungstechnik und deren Resultat, zu dem über den erzeugten Effekt hinaus die große Haltbarkeit der Gestaltung gehörte.

Der Beitrag zur Sektion rekonstruiert unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Materials und auf Basis der frühesten nachweisbaren Sgraffito-Fassaden (Palazzo Davizzi-Davanzati, San Remigio) und bildlicher Zeugnisse (Andrea Pisanos „Webkunst“-Relief am Campanile) die Erfindung des Sgraffito zu Beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts in Florenz. Dies schließt die Frage ein, wie ein vergleichsweise billiger Werkstoff zu einem bevorzugten Material für die Gestaltung bedeutender Bauwerke werden konnte, was sich daraus zur zeitgenössischen Rezeption der Technik ableiten lässt und welche Rolle Handwerker und (ab 1452 nachweisbar:) namhafte Künstler bei der Erfindung bzw. Entwicklung der Sgraffito-Kunst spielten.

preferred future in Indian Urban context is hinged on an urgent paradigm shift from curtain glazing to isolate and then condition the inner atmosphere to recessed glazing, shades and shadows with added generically greening of outer skins to combat the declining air quality and by engaging in Climate Responsive Building Design principles as are amply demonstrated in our traditionally built buildings for minimizing the heat sink.

l'exercice consistait à évaluer de façon subjective les enveloppes, que l'on croise.
Je l'ai fait en m'appuyant sur le comportement humain qui repulse et rejette tout ce qu'il ne trouve pas attractive " beau ".
ceci est une application de l'exercice au plateau Plateau Amimoune –
Par Jean ROYER –Béjaïa.

Contemporary architecture should focus on the ability to react, adapt, and change rapidly according to the environment or profiles (Oosterhuis, 2003). This flexibility/adaptability has materialised in recent times in various ways. Today the façade is the place where we most often experience the concept of adaptability. Within this framework, the façade returns to communicate through smart technologies and adaptive systems, mainly thanks to dynamic devices. We often deal with dynamic or kinetic façades. This paper aims to examine the relationships that contemporary dynamic façades shall determine with the context and with the users through three survey instruments: the shape of the dynamic elements, the pattern, and the colour of the façade. The investigation will be made with reference to examples of recent buildings and architectural projects. Keywords: architectural design, dynamic façades, kinetic façades, environmental quality

Ever since its recovery from the Arabs by Alfonso VI in 1085 and particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, Toledo became the city concentrating both Castilian political power and the individual noblemen holding it. In every respect the city became the scene of intense competition between these individuals, a competition that is visible in the building of private homes, the grandee’s material status symbol. The restrained ornamental and compositional lines regulating the buildings of this period, however, forced each palace to express its owner’s wealth by means of its façade, a consequence of the fascination exerted by Almohad architecture across the border, in spite of the ongoing confrontation, and its resulting influence.

Der zwischen 1445 und 1452 erbaute Palazzo Medici gilt als Bauwerk, das durch seine Verweise auf den Kommunalpalast von Florenz und/oder kaiserzeitliche Gemäuer in Rom die Machtansprüche und die Herrschaft der Medici-Familie unübersehbar ins Bild setze, ja sogar ein " Krypto-Königspalast " sei. Begründet wird dies wie folgt: Die ungewöhnliche Größe des Bauwerks und seine Positionierung als freistehender, in die Straßenflucht hineinragender Block auf einem Schnittpunkt wichtiger urbaner Achsen sowie die Errichtung ex novo, also als vollständiger Neubau, hätten ihr Vorbild allein in den Gebäuden der Kommunalregierung, allen voran im Palazzo della Signoria. Die Bezugnahme auf das traditionelle Machtzentrum der Kommune äußere sich insbesondere in der Fassadengestaltung. So rekurrierten die Rustizierung, das Kranzgesims und vor allem die erstmalig an einem Privatbau verwendeten Biforienfenster auf den Palazzo della Signoria. Auch für den Innenhof wird dieses Vorbild in Anspruch genommen. Der Palazzo Medici würde so dem alten Kommunalpalast als ‚alternativer Regierungssitz' entgegengestellt. Hierfür spräche unter anderem auch der Empfang und die Unterbringung von Staatsgästen wie dem mailändischen Fürstensohn Galeazzo Maria Sforza im Jahr 1459 und zeitgenössische Zeugnisse, die den Palast als ‚königlich' lobten. Im Falle der Rustizierung wird noch ein weiteres Vorbild genannt, in dem sich das Selbstbild der Medici und ihr Machtanspruch besonders deutlich offenbaren sollen: Die Umfassungsmauer des antiken Augustus-Forums in Rom, die Zeitgenossen als " palazo di Sesare " - also als Palast Caesars - galt. Dieser Interpretation steht Cosimo de' Medicis öffentliches Auftreten entgegen, das gerade das Fehlen von allzu direkt vorgetragenen Machtansprüchen und autoritären Gesten charakterisierte. Stattdessen präsentierte sich Cosimo höchst geschickt als bürgerlich-republikanischer primus inter pares. Der Beitrag versucht, aus der Rekonstruktion der Baugenese und der Diskussion ausgewählter Architekturelemente eine andere Deutung des Palazzo Medici zu entwickeln.

This paper presents a numerical way for performance assessment of a widely used glass panel system in Turkey. Both structural and infiltration performances are investigated according to three selected multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods. The evaluation combines both the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method and also by complex proportional assessment (COPRAS) method. During the evaluation process, AHP is used to analyze the structure of the evaluation and to determine weights of the criteria while the others are used to obtain final ranking. Within the scope of this numerical work, real-time and full-scale wind resistance, infiltration, and seismic resistance tests conducted on two specimens, are used for acquiring the data. A fatigue process is also applied to one of the systems in addition to a standard test procedure. For the evaluation process, a total of 10 different criteria and 2 alternatives are identified for decision making. Performance indicator data obtained from the detailed calculations using the AHP, COPRAS and TOPSIS methods, are then utilized during the numerical assessment process. The " critical level " is defined within the evaluation process and it indicates the percent (%) values of the obtained performance indicators. As a result of the evaluations, it has been determined that AHP and TOPSIS methods gave similar results and so they have been selected as the preferred methods for the evaluation of experimental results since their results are consistent and easy to interpret compared to the COPRAS method.

Immography is a neologism for describing architects' signatures visible on buildings of their design. The European neighbourhood of Brussels, constructed round the turn of the 20th century, is particularly rich in examples, many on buildings in the Art Nouveau style.
In annex, a checklist of buildings bearing an architect's signature.
Includes an updated listing of architects' signatures ("immographies"), 3.7.2024.

Reducing energy consumption due to cooling load will have a significant positive impact on the economic growth of hot/warm countries, the majority of which are developing / underdeveloped, as well as on global warming effects. One of the most effective ways in reducing the cooling loads on the buildings is the use of Facades, but it has not been thoroughly investigated. In this paper, numerical analysis of the effects of installing thin opaque ventilated facades on the side walls of a closed room on its cooling load have been analysed. For moderate climatic conditions, the different façade configurations (covering all four sidewalls) with two different air cavity gaps (2 inches and 5 inches) have been studied. It has been observed that using facades can reduce cooling load by approximately 18.8601% when it was used on all side walls compared to that of without facade.

In the past years, there has been a growing interest among architects and entrepreneurs to include intelligence in buildings, as a way for achieving energy-efficient buildings that comply with stringent energy codes and national goals of reducing dangerous emissions, together with improving corporate image. The aim of this paper is to explore the influence of incorporating intelligence in buildings in hot climates, through the perspective of energy consumption and user comfort with an emphasis on lighting. The paper will show how decisions taken in the early design stages can affect those of later ones. Moreover, it will try to clarify how much building performance depends on early smart architectural design decisions (passive design strategies) or if it can be left exclusively to later intelligent technological devices (active features). By means of computer energy modelling, a prototype office unit is used to evaluate energy performance and visual comfort in three parametric series. The first one is the result of the incorporation of active features alone, the second one is guided by intelligent passive design strategies, and the third one is the combination of both approaches. Results show that a truly intelligent building needs to be the product of a design process that incorporates intelligence in all its stages while taking advantage of technological innovations. r

Title of the presentation (required field for all participants):_ Architectural organization of the facade according to the principle of variability: videoecological aspect (on the example of a competition project "The future business-residential building in Subotica, Petefi Sandor street 3 and 5") Abstract of the presentation (required field for all participants):_ The report is devoted to one of the concerning the current state of the facades on apartment buildings-videoecology. The modern city visu is contaminated, because composition of the contemporary architecture of high-rise buildings such as offi apartment buildings is usually based on a simple description of a rhythm. It creates a sense of oppressive monotony and leads to psychological and visual fatigue, especially when these repetitions are the only pattern the eye perceives. An increase in the size of houses and a significant increase the number of storeys (while maintaining their former general form) are in conflict with the necessary conditions for normal human life, since they negatively affect people᾿s psyche and visual apparatus. Yards which a by huge walls of 16-27-storey buildings are not perceived as recreational spaces. A combination of archi the peculiarities of human perception is a kind of source of aesthetic pleasure. This is a source of interna health for the urban residents.

Em Portugal, a utilização de revestimento de placagem de pedra serrada associada a sistemas de fachada ventilada teve um aumento substancial durante as últimas décadas, fundamentalmente a partir da promulgação de legislação de conforto térmico em 1990. Este revestimento começou a ser encarado como solução de diferenciação qualitativa em edifícios de diferentes funções, da administração pública, dos serviços, ou de habitação.
A observação dessa larga produção, com o tempo entretanto passado a servir de plataforma real de teste, permite perceber como se têm comportado os mesmos do ponto de vista da degradação estética e construtiva, constatando-se uma grande assimetria aparentemente não relacionada com a idade do imóvel. Assim, várias questões podem ser colocadas; se a ideia comummente aceite da qualidade a longo termo destes revestimentos seria correcta; se existiriam conjugações de características que poderiam, por si sós, ser responsáveis pelo aparecimento de determinadas anomalias; e se esses dados, incluídos numa fase de projecto, poderiam ser garante de uma maior qualidade.
O objectivo do presente trabalho foi iniciar a sistematização dessa análise (primeiramente intuitiva) a partir do tratamento de uma base de dados de edifícios construídos no Grande Porto, seguidamente identificando e caracterizando aspectos que poderiam influenciar esse envelhecimento e diminuição de qualidades estéticas, como sejam: data de construção, tipo de pedra utilizada, espessura e geometria das placas, alinhamento ou desfasamento de juntas, sistemas de fixação, tipo e espessura de isolamento térmico, orientação solar das fachadas, localização das placas na fachada, relação com outros elementos e materiais, forma do edifício e relação do mesmo com o seu entorno próximo (natural e construído). Para algumas zonas da cidade foi possível fazer esse aferição do estado de conservação com uma década de intervalo (2005-2015).
A análise permitiu a identificação da persistência de certas anomalias em determinadas condições específicas.

The glass facades market in South America has greatly evolved in the last fifteen years especially in countries like Argentina, Brazil and Chile,
Following the industry trends at a global level, regional architecture tries to catch up with the latest developments in Europe and USA.
Driving forces are:
• Improved economic situation in the region.
• Sustained growth of the global economy.
• New urban developments in major cities.
• And why not, a significant lack of infrastructure and housing that fires a tremendous demand of real estate infrastructure (roads, houses, bridges, power plants, office buildings, hospitals, etc.).
This paper analyzes the past, present and future of glass Facades market, describes opportunities and threats, and problems encountered in importing technologies and materials.
A major role is given to environmental and cultural issues as remarkable factors that influence current and future trends, investments and expectations.
The role of standards and regulations affecting the Glass facades and its current situation is briefly described.
Some of the outstanding latest, current and future projects will be shown as well as some industry figures.

Building facades are key to the building systems integration necessary to realise critical health, carbon,resilience, and sustainability goals in buildings and urban habitats. In addition, facade system designand delivery may be the most rapidly developing building technology, with novel materials, assembliesand techniques introduced in the marketplace frequently. However, these developments are occurringin the long-running absence of an appropriate framework for facade system performance evaluation.There has been no general convergence on the assessment criteria nor, for the most part, on the metricsto accompany those criteria. The convergence of myriad and often competing variables that characterisethe building facade mark the development of a comprehensive integrative assessment framework asa wicked problem, The lack of such a framework inhibits meaningful development and adoption ofinnovative facade technology, leaving aesthetic considerations to drive application and compromisi...

Building façades are key to the building systems integration necessary to realise critical health, carbon, resilience, and sustainability goals in buildings and urban habitats. In addition, façade system design and delivery may be the most rapidly developing building technology, with novel materials, assemblies and techniques introduced in the marketplace frequently. However, these developments are occurring in the long-running absence of an appropriate framework for façade system performance evaluation. There has been no general convergence on the assessment criteria nor, for the most part, on the metrics to accompany those criteria. The convergence of myriad and often competing variables that characterise the building façade mark the development of a comprehensive integrative assessment framework as a wicked problem, The lack of such a framework inhibits meaningful development and adoption of innovative façade technology, leaving aesthetic considerations to drive application and compromising the evolution of performative system behaviour. It prohibits a meaningful comparison between façade systems, or of new techniques with prior applications. Adoption of new façade technology is constrained as designers, building owners, and, most importantly, authorities with jurisdiction at the level of city government are unable to accurately value its performative contribution to occupants, to a building project, or to the urban environment. Very early efforts and thinking in the development of a comprehensive Integrative Façade Assessment Framework by the Façade Metrics Working Group of the Façade Tectonics Institute are documented here. A preliminary review of existing façade system metrics and assessment strategies reveals they are fragmented, too narrowly focused, and lack the comprehensive integration to provide an accurate evaluation. With a strong focus on energy performance in new buildings, deep and vital considerations like retrofit and renovation strategies, passive survivability, durability and service life, and resilience are often neglected entirely. We outline some new directions that begin to address these gaps and suggest a data-rich, visual framework and knowledge-sharing platform to advance progress with enhanced metrics and façade systems evaluation and comparison.

Molds attack buildings on a broad scale, cause significant damage and carry a number of negative effects on human health. The design of the methodology is based on EN 60068-2-10 "Environmental Impact Testing-Parts 2-10: Tests-Test J and Instructions: Mold Growth" and ČSN 72 4310 "Testing the Resistance of Building Products and Materials against Mold". However, the first of these standards is intended for electrical industry and the other was published in 1975 with no later revisions. The design of the new methodology aims at simplifying and updating and, last but not least, imitating the success of already implemented methodology for testing resistance to green algae growth. The proposed methodology was successfully verified on both standards and real samples.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the common "pattern language" between the spaces for public use of social housing and the popular or informal neighborhoods in Puerto Rico. It refers to the concept developed by the architect Christopher Alexander, mainly in his books "A timeless way of building" and "A pattern language: towns, buildings, construction". Alexander states that the character of a place is related to the events that occur there. Likewise, he points out that each culture has patterns that characterize it. In the case of social and informal housing in Puerto Rico, the pattern language is characterized by the extension of the domestic space to the street. Some aspects that we can observe in both contexts are chairs for talking and observing passers-by, domino tables, inflatable pools and barber shops, among other things, on the streets and sidewalks. In the case of the popular neighborhoods, the facades of the houses are part of this need to externalize the decoration that identifies the residents.
However, in the projects of individual housing or collective housing, without the seal of the "social", the public space is usually empty of people and identity. In a certain way, in the individual dwellings, the residents make changes in the facades that in the long term detach them from the character of serial construction and in some cases lead them to resemble examples of the popular neighborhoods. Even so, the public space remains inert, lifeless.
It is worth asking if the study of the patterns of social and informal housing in Puerto Rico, together with a process of dialogue and reflection with residents of diverse communities, would help in the development of public spaces more linked to the idiosyncrasies of Puerto Ricans.

Die äußere Erscheinung und die Wirkung von Architektur werden nicht nur vom verwendeten Material, sondern insbesondere von dessen Be- und Verarbeitung mitbestimmt: Die Gestaltung der Oberfläche kann das Material der konstruktiven wie der schmückenden Glieder eines Baus herausstellen und mit Bedeutung aufladen, es vergessen lassen oder verdecken. Die hierfür verwendeten Technologien sind dementsprechend vielfältig; zu ihnen zählen unter anderem Sichtmauerwerk aus Hau-, Bruch- oder Backstein, gestaltete Fugen und Putze, Inkrustationen, Stein- und Ziegelverkleidungen und Farbfassungen. Die Genese, Technologie, Funktion und Semantik von Architekturoberflächen interessierten die Architekturwissenschaft bislang nur wenig, obwohl sie essentieller Bestandteil jeder architektonischen Konzeption sind und Kernfragen des Fachs berühren. In den letzten Jahren deutete sich allerdings eine Veränderung in der Wahrnehmung an, die sich nicht zuletzt aus dem neuen Interesse an Gottfried Sempers Stoffwechsel- bzw. Bekleidungstheorie speist. Die im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung Kunst und Technik im Sommersemester 2017 stattfindenden Vorträge von Kunst- und Architekturhistoriker*innen und Denkmalpfleger*innen nehmen diesen Faden auf und führen in zum Teil wenig beachtete historische Techniken, ihre Ausführung, Materialien und Werkzeuge ein und vertiefen anhand konkreter Objekte Fragen der Funktion und Bedeutung der Oberflächengestaltung in der Architektur allgemein. Hierbei finden notwendigerweise auch Aspekte der Konservierung und Restaurierung Berücksichtigung, denn die Architekturoberfläche gehört als Kontaktzone zum Außenraum zu den sensibelsten Bereichen eines Bauwerk. Sie ist daher sowohl in starkem Maße von baulichen und gestalterischen Veränderungen als auch von Umwelteinflüssen betroffen, die im Laufe der Zeit die ursprüngliche Wirkung, Bearbeitungsspuren und zum Teil sogar das Material selbst zerstören können. Ihre Erhaltung ist daher die Grundlage ihrer weiteren Erforschung; gleichzeitig liefert das wissenschaftliche Interesse Argumente für den Schutz und die Bewahrung historischer Architekturoberflächen.

Current research main objective is to identify colours that traditionally have been use in Cuenca´s Historical Center civil architecture. To reach this objective, a methodology has been developed that includes historic data, stories and testimonies of people that have kept in their memory, the colours that have been part of the city´s image. Additionally, prospective samples or "calas” were obtained to discover in situ, colours that were hidden in the walls and other facades´ elements of some historical patrimony buildings. This enabled to make a historical colour palette, which serves as a basic instrument to be taken in account in several chromatic proposals regarding buildings and urban sections inside Cuenca´s Historic Center.

The current paper aims at the restoration of the facades of the Alicia Alonso Havana Great Theatre, headquarters of the prestigious National Ballet of Cuba and considered an important building with recognized tangible and intangible values. It is located at the border of the old city. Its stone façades had different states of damages that were undergoing a constructive process based on proper conservation treatment. The most remarkable characteristics of the main morphologies of alteration, factors and mechanisms that influenced their evolution were shown in this work as well as the proposals of solutions to eradicate them, dealing mainly with the cleaning of the stone, selection of the used method, and the corresponding results.

Façade is the oldest, most ubiquitous element in the history of architecture, constantly the protagonist of its practice. Historically, we can define the façade as an assemblage of symbols attached to the external face of a generic wall. But to reduce the definition to this superficial comprehension of symbols and sheds is not sufficient to define its postmodern or contemporary position-thus, we shall look deeper into the definition of the façade by researching not its decor, but the relationships towards its thickness. Decorated or transparent, the façade always kept one fundamental principle as its definition: that of a surface. If the brise-soleil was crucial on the development of the façade, this device to control the environment has created a new type of space that belongs not to the inside nor the outside, that as an architectural device lacks a proper history. A new political and representational space, in which the absence of a theoretical evaluation opens a new field of exploration with this research. When Bernard Tschumi's Lerner Hall creates an envelope composed of ramps, the façade assumes a thickness that negotiates this inside-outside relationship. A new condition appears, blurring the limits of the object and the city. Not a functional snapshot of the building nor a represen-tational portrait of symbolic meanings, the thick-envelope exhibits a renewed attitude-function and meaning are flattened in a choreography displayed by the users. If the contemporary discussion focuses on the political and architectural production of spaces, without a clear definition of spatial boundaries, the performative agency of its limits is questioned. I propose that contemporary architecture is that of the thick-envelope, the quasi-urban space where the definitions of inside and outside are mixed and its political boundaries collapse. In the inhabited space of the thick envelope, city and building become one, and the question of whether to submit to public or private laws and behaviors are blurred: new space invokes new performances. To understand the contemporary condition is to understand the thick-envelope as the mediator between object and city. The thick-envelope assumes the (last) role of political architecture, a space of architectural agency long ignored.

In the ISO 16283 series for field measurement of sound insulation, a low-frequency procedure is specified for determining indoor average sound pressure level, which is the so-called corner method. In the procedure, additional measurements are required in the corners in addition to the default measurements in the central zone, and the indoor average level is corrected with the highest level in the corners. However, this procedure was empirically proposed, and its validity is not fully examined for façade sound insulation. In this paper, detailed experiments were performed in a mock lightweight wooden house for validating the low-frequency procedure for façade sound insulation measurement. The results suggest that a correction with energy-averaging level of all corners is more reliable than with the maximum level, and the uncertainty in the default procedure is sufficiently improved with additional measurements in four non-adjacent corners. Moreover, the effect of the detailed positio...