A former embassy becomes a hotel without erasing its history
The 30 Grosvenor Square panel described how the former US Embassy was opened back to Mayfair while retaining the listed building’s Portland stone, met...
Retrofit needs planning, engineering and viability in the same room
Ana Araújo’s panel explored why central London retrofit is becoming an evidence-led negotiation between planning policy, technical discovery, commerci...
Complex façades depend on one coordinated model
Roger Schaerer and Thang Vo showed how BM Windows links 3D modelling, fabrication sequencing and QA/QC on complex unitised façades, then applied the s...
Structural interlayers are also a carbon and traceability decision
Allan Gibson connected structural laminated-glass performance with down-gauging, durability, product authenticity and supply-chain traceability.
Façade literacy is a risk-control tool
Rui Monteiro argued that many envelope failures are preventable when interfaces are mapped, responsibility is explicit and teams understand how air, w...
Building safety changes the definition of competence
Russell Cole and Neville Grunwald argued that the Building Safety Act is not a narrow fire-compliance exercise: it changes duty, evidence, competence...
When component innovation plateaus, systems thinking takes over
Shawn Duffy used One North Quay and the transformation of 8 Canada Square to argue that higher building performance now depends on interactions betwee...
Designing façades that can survive changing ideas
Simon Allford used decades of practice to argue that façade design should be judged not only by its first image, but by its ability to accommodate cha...
Building Safety Act lessons are becoming new design practice
Stephen Tanno and Peter Goff closed the day with practitioners who are already working through Gateway 2, remediation and principal-designer duties, f...
Chapter Living turns origami into a buildable unitised façade
Phil Sedge’s project panel traced how a folded concept beside the Shard became a repeatable, off-site manufactured façade for a 39-storey student towe...
A coating specification is a durability system
Coby Armar explained why architectural powder coating quality depends on the complete specification, from pretreatment and applicator controls to expo...
Bankside Yards makes a tall home part of a mixed city
Daniel Moore and Dan Clarke presented the residential tower at Bankside Yards as one piece of a fossil-fuel-free mixed-use neighbourhood stitched back...
Value-up starts with what a building already has
With Dan Gleeson unable to speak, Stephen Tanno delivered their joint Schüco session on repurposing buildings through survey, retention, façade adapta...
Embedding emotion at Xi’an CCBD
Nick Ling, Maela Allegretti and Alexis Harrison showed how a London-designed commercial district in Xi’an used urban form, ceramic craft and a habitab...
Hybrid steel curtain walls answer demands aluminium cannot always solve alone
Eric Claeys explored steel and hybrid curtain-wall strategies for projects where slender sightlines, fire, structure, scale or bespoke geometry push c...
Kinetic façades become a building system
Florian Ebner presented seeleKinetic as a move from static envelope components toward façade elements that respond to users and environmental conditio...
Turning a central bank back into a public building
Francine Houben used the transformation of De Nederlandsche Bank to show how reuse can recover architecture, public life and material value at the sam...
User experience can drive a lower-carbon façade
Frank Filskow and Jonathan Walker described a riverside workplace where daylight, views, natural ventilation and solar control were treated as one sys...
Future-fit buildings begin with transformation, not replacement
Harry Cliffe-Roberts framed adaptive reuse as a design discipline that must align commercial value, user experience and carbon while working with the...
Powder coatings are starting to carry their own carbon strategy
Jimi Ogunsola presented bio-based resins, anodised-look finishes and colour trends as ways for architectural coatings to reduce impact without giving...
Curved glass moves beyond the mould
Joan Tarrús presented a manufacturing route intended to make complex, heat-treated curved glass more repeatable, faster to evaluate and less dependent...
The city can become its own stone quarry
FMDC used Panorama St Paul’s, 30 Duke Street and South Molton Triangle to demonstrate that reclaimed stone can move from exceptional experiment to rep...
Low-carbon curtain walling begins by using less
Alistair Law’s cross-industry panel challenged the assumption that lower-carbon façades must cost more, testing a menu of design actions against carbo...
Airtightness is a small layer with a large consequence
Matthew Owen showed how membranes, junctions and condensation analysis can influence energy performance far beyond their physical thickness, especiall...
Glass data is becoming part of the design material
Moujehed Neffoussi linked coating innovation with product-specific environmental data, arguing that façade decisions increasingly need performance, ca...
External wall appraisal is becoming a permanent building record
Paul Phillips set out how FRAEW, EWS1 evidence and intrusive investigation are changing the way external-wall risk is assessed, recorded and carried i...
Growth and conservation: designing the City of London's 2040 skyline
The Square Mile has to grow relentlessly and safeguard two thousand years of townscape at once. The City of London Corporation's Tom Nancollas showed...