The façade of the building has always remained the most significant from the point of view of both the designers as well as the developers. The façades of the buildings have multiple roles to play and perform several functions. It is the interface between interior space and exterior environment and plays a crucial role in heat and light exchange, thermal and acoustic performance thus providing occupant comfort. The façade of the building has to keep and maintain the balance between all the parameters that include: aesthetics, thermal comfort, managing daylight and solar heat gain, visibility, etc. With the advent of new technologies and the increasing need for occupant comfort, innovations in façade materials keep on happening. What can be expected from the future façades? What should be the characteristics of the façades in the future? Which material can become the preferred choice to create the façades in the future? To...

UNStudio was appointed to design the masterplan and architecture for the new Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Residences in Etiler, a prestigious residential quarter on the European side of Istanbul, located close to the city’s central business district. The 216,740 m2 development comprises three high-rise towers that merge with a lush green garden above a commercial podium with underground parking. The new Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Residences is planned to open in 2022. Programme The three towers within the development accommodate different living typologies. One of the towers will house the Mandarin Oriental Etiler, Istanbul with 158 guestrooms and suites and 16 serviced apartments. The remaining two towers house 251 residences at Mandarin Oriental. The hotel will have three restaurants and bars, a selection of adaptable meeting spaces with outdoor areas and terraces, a spa and fitness centre, and both an indoor and outdoor swimming pool. The residences at Mandarin Oriental...

Tell us about your practice and design approach. Ours is a boutique practice. Our team is small and the number of projects we can possibly work on is limited. We have a presence in multiple regions - Kochi- India, Dubai- UAE, London- UK, and Bali- Indonesia. Now Bali primarily deals with product design and sourcing of certain specific items regarding our own projects. Our strength is we are small and have a diverse pool of architects from different regions that make out design solutions more vibrant. We have been achieving substantial strides in terms of sustainable solutions - including having projects that are completely off the grid (for the last 10 years) to developing projects that have gone through the cradle-to-cradle life cycle. Every project is viewed differently as they stem from different programmatic briefs, site and desired contextual responses and place-making plays a key role in grounding the project....

Introduction The façade industry is facing a crucial moment, as many other industries and in particular, the construction industry is in the middle of a very convulse time, affected by either global and local economic situation, pandemic or other different factors. In this article we are going through these factors and the way the façade industry is taking to overcome them. Façade Challenges This year has been a quite peculiar one due to the COVID world pandemic that had affected seriously all the industries, however the construction and façade in particular has reacted very fast and adopted the required safety measures and embraced the new communication possibilities such as video calls and internet presentations, by the use of the actually available tools a good level of coordination has been maintained between the different stake holders making possible the progress of the projects. Apart from the stationary challenges, the façade industry...

Fire safety in high rises and dense urban areas is a major issue. What are the main causes for the same relating to the façade and fenestration design? More than half of the world’s population now live in urban settlements. The rising demand for space within our cities have led to unplanned and poor quality developments and has choked the urban infrastructure, including health care and emergency services, beyond its capacity. Fires can start and spread easily in such locations due to a number of factors such as poor quality electrical distribution and overload, combustible fuels for cooking, flammable building materials, lack of fire hydrants and water supplies and the inability to bring fire-fighting equipment through narrow lanes and alleys to fight fire. Whilst precluding most of above to prevent fire disaster in dense urban areas may remain a challenge, an effective façade and fenestration design has a significant role...

Fires cause over 300,000 deaths annually and are the fourth-largest cause of accidental injury globally after road accidents, falls, and drowning. Burn injury risk is strongly associated with urban areas with crowded regions, which are growing rapidly in an urbanising world. Fires in high-rise buildings and residential complexes are one of the major urban disasters due to the high population density, and high economic value of buildings and land. The high concentration of people and property makes firefighting and evacuation operations very difficult in case of a fire event. Team WFM discussed the factors affecting fire occurrence in highrise buildings with many experts including architects, engineers and consultants, and found that the main factors influencing the fire risks and spread of fire in buildings are fire safety evacuation ability, building fire prevention capability, and building fire safety management status. Fire Safety In High-Rises In Dense Urban Areas [caption id="attachment_42363" align="alignleft"...

According to economists, we are currently living in the ‘Indian Century’, and Bengaluru - with its moniker as the Silicon Valley of India, due to a large number of information technology companies based in the city - finds itself at the epicenter of this rapid growth. Within this thriving tech hub, UNStudio has designed the new Karle Town Centre (KTC), while UNSense - the arch tech company founded by UNStudio - is collaborating with Karle Infra to curate the use of sensorial technologies throughout the masterplan. KTC is a development that aims to define Bengaluru locally and inspire the whole of India to ‘lead by example’ when designing future urban destinations. KTC, which is currently under construction, enjoys a direct connection to the city’s ring road arterial and expanding metro lines. It is positioned prominently next to the established Manyata Tech Park with scenic views over Nagavara Lake and is...

The ‘Urban Square’ is a commercial development in Gurugram, Haryana. The commercial complex is strategically located on the Golf Course Extension Road within the Pioneer Park Township. Planned as four midrise towers in pairs with landscaped courtyards in between them, the towers accommodate retail spaces facing these courtyards at the lower levels and contemporary flexible office spaces at the upper levels. [caption id="attachment_42099" align="alignleft" width="300"] The ‘Urban Square’ is a commercial development in Gurugram, Haryana[/caption] The towers have been placed such that each tower has its own unique and grand entry experience from the landscaped courts between each pair of towers. Two levels of the basement below the four towers ensure adequate parking for all users as well as visitors. The façade has been designed keeping the solar orientation in mind with the western and eastern faces having the least surface area and openings, the northern and the southern face...

In a conversation with Window & Façade Magazine, Leigh talked about Tremco’s product range, their fire safety solutions for buildings, the market of fire safety materials in the Middle East, etc. Here are the excerpts… Please brief us about your journey in Tremco. I joined Tremco in 1993 as a Sales Representative for the North of England and Scotland. I became the National Sales Manager of the UK & Ireland Flooring business from 1998. In 2014, I became the Export Sales Manager responsible for all sales in the Asia Pacific. In 2018, I moved to Dubai as Sales Director for the Middle East where I am responsible for the business in all of the GCC countries as well as Egypt. [caption id="attachment_41923" align="alignleft" width="300"] National Bank of Dubai[/caption] Tell us about your product offerings? What benefits do they offer? Tremco offers a comprehensive range of construction solutions, particularly in the...

Dholera smart housing is a research-oriented development with a sustainable vision. It is envisaged as a modular form of living spaces conceived by apartments with terraces providing intangible experiences within homes. A dynamic form has been leveraged into a system of potentialities creating inside outside spaces that merge. As the ‘New Normal’ of ‘working from home’ is changing how we live, the architecture plays a significant role in cohesive integration of humans with nature and social interactions, while maintaining privacy. [caption id="attachment_41849" align="alignright" width="300"] Site study[/caption] Dholera Smart Housing initiated with an aim to create experiential living. The design intends to create an exceptional experience of diverse spaces for users by providing resilient spaces in the mixed use development. Architecture increasingly resembles an organism that is responsive to its own internal nature and external conditions of its surrounding. Site The site is defined in the new master plan of Dholera,...

The cladding aims to withstand external weathering and offer durability and sustainability to the building façade. The choice in design and material of a façade is determined by factors such as the size and type of building, its geographical location, weather conditions it is exposed to etc. Energy efficiency is the main concern, besides its appearance. Today, the market offers a variety of materials for façades with abundant choices in designs and patterns. Large-size porcelain tiles and high-pressure laminates are in trend for their aesthetic value and sturdiness. Exterior Clad Laminated (ECL) high-pressure laminates and porcelain wall clads are used for the majority of structures. The products have anti-graffiti properties and offer flexibility in installation. These are high-grade and high-pressure compact laminates. Inspired by the colours and patterns of natural wood, the 6mm thick, laminates come in over 200 designs in grainy bark style or plain wood patterns. Mount matt...

Cladding in construction is a material applied on the exterior walls to provide a skin or layer. It provides a degree of thermal insulation and weather resistance and also improves the appearance of buildings. Cladding can be made of any of a wide range of materials available in the market, including wood, metal, stone, brick, vinyl, and composite materials that can comprise aluminium, wood, stones, blends of cement and recycled polystyrene, etc. The wall cladding market in India is still evolving and the future for the same definitely holds much promise with the high demands in the construction industry. In this edition’s cover story, we discuss the trends in cladding materials and technologies, intelligent and responsive cladding solutions, future cladding materials and designs, testing for the wall clads for strength and durability, standards and norms while procuring and installing cladding materials, and much more. [caption id="attachment_41788" align="alignnone" width="774"] One of...

What are the 4 key trends in exterior wall cladding? Modern and innovative materials such as exterior grade laminates (as per EN438-6), fibre reinforced concrete, metal claddings (zinc, copper, and steel) are creating a healthy disruption in the market apart from available traditional materials. Exterior grade laminates (such as Max Exterior from the original FunderMax) offer 121 decors, which gives high design freedom for people who create. They are also available in various surfaces like matt, glossy and textured. The installation follows the sustainable and acclaimed rear ventilated principle that can help keep the heat at bay and enhance the occupant comfort of the building. With the current trend towards passive architecture, we see the growth of usage in sun-shading systems. Systems like FunderMax’s new shading system - Max Lato, which is a louver system - are specifically aimed at improving daylighting, glare mitigation and energy efficiency, without compromising on...

The Grenfell Tragedy in 2017 which shook the United Kingdom and the world brought the spotlight on the British standard for fire performance of external cladding systems – BS 8414. This test method has been ported to standards in countries such as Australia, Malaysia, and the UAE references the same directly in their Fire and Life Safety Code. The test method is also specified directly for projects in many countries (such as the new airports coming up in India). With the increased scrutiny over façade fire safety, a revision was not unexpected. At the same time, the 2018 revision of UAE Fire and Life Safety Code of Practice had been increasing the options for material compliance, adding several international standards to avoid alienating materials from prominent supply chains. The code also uniquely references (test) standards without their year of publication and mandates the latest revisions are to be used. The...

In conversation with Architect Karl Wadia from Architect Hafeez Contractor, he explains how the pandemic COVI-19 is going to impact the practice of architecture, the need for ‘Informed Designs’, his thoughts on Biophilia and occupant wellness, and the true concepts of Net Zero & Carbon Neutral buildings. Is COVID going to change the way we design buildings, and how is it going to impact the practice of architecture? Pedestrian portal, Lodha Sterling, Thane It was a matter of time we began changing the way we design buildings and therefore I believe your question is more an inevitability than an “if”. Change has been in the offing for quite some time now and this pandemic is a catalyst for the entire fraternity that supports and participates in the design and construction of the built environment to embrace a new way of thinking and approaching design. In a sense it is a...

The façade is one of the most important contributors to any building's energy use and comfort parameters. In order to provide occupants with a comfortable environment, a façade must fulfil many functions, such as providing views to the outside, resisting wind loads, supporting its own dead load weight, allowing daylight to interior spaces, blocking unwanted solar heat gain, protecting occupants from outside noise and temperature extremes, and resisting air and water penetration. The highly glazed façade has become an important component today. The common use of glass in building envelopes has greatly fascinated the 'green building' and construction designers and owners. However, most of those buildings have an intense reflection or use overly reflected glass and face severe internal comfort challenges. Only robust HVAC systems can solve this, resulting in substantial capacity, costs and environmental penalties. The future façades will be much more interactive, environmentally friendly and design innovative. Integrating...