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 Nancoll…

Tom Nancollas · City of London

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India

The living façade: when a building’s skin becomes a threshold, not a boundary

In the keynote, James Tan, the Singapore practice behind the Mandai Rainforest Resort, argued that architecture is ecology, and that the faç…

James Tan · WOW Architects

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Americas

Preserving Wright's experiment: redesigning Taliesin West's roof for another generation

John Anderson treats preservation at Taliesin West as continuity of ideas rather than frozen material. A new roof system uses digital survey…

John Anderson · 180 Degrees Design + Build

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Middle East, Africa, Turkey & CIS

TeamLab Phenomena: an envelope asked to keep changing

Tony Abi Gebrayel walks through TeamLab Phenomena on Saadiyat, a building whose envelope was asked to do the one thing façades are not suppo…

Tony Abi Gebrayel · MZ Architects

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Europe

Oriente Green Campus: keep, edit, add, a concrete ruin turned into a campus

John Bushell, Tiago Sallas and Miguel Barbas showed how an unpromising concrete structure became a vital tech campus in Lisbon. By preservin…

John Bushell, Tiago Sallas & Miguel Barbas · Kohn Pedersen Fox · Saraiva + Associados · Norfin

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Asia-Pacific

‘Design a place, not a building’: Harborside’s low-carbon façade

Gumji Kang walks through Harborside in Sydney’s Darling Harbour, a competition-winning reimagining of a tired 1980s shopping centre. From th…

Gumji Kang · Snøhetta

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From the ZWOF stage

Americas

ZWOF Vancouver 2026 Canada RetrofitGFRCBuilding ScienceCommissioning

Unlocking value in a Brutalist box: whole-envelope thinking and commissioning at the Glenbow

Dale Wannamaker & Timothy Wong

ZWOF Vancouver 2026 Canada Curtain wallArchitectureDesignVancouver

Ten façades, one question: how do you protect an idea all the way to completion?

Venelin Kokalov

ZWOF Vancouver 2026 Canada Embodied carbonAluminiumSustainabilityVancouver

Sustainability from every angle: why chasing recycled content is a zero-sum game

Jordi Marasse

ZWOF Vancouver 2026 Canada Fire safetyCladdingBuilding ScienceCombustibility

Playing with fire: why fire safety has to shape the façade from the first sketch

Peter Senez, David Goyne, Claire Yuan, Graham Finch & James Johnson

ZWOF Vancouver 2026 Canada VancouverMass timberBuilding SciencePanelization

A skin with no floor lines: layering a mass-timber façade to move like feathers

Brad Carmichael

ZWOF Vancouver 2026 Canada Curtain wallSupply chainNet ZeroFibreglass

Zero-tariff, net-zero: how a locally-made fibreglass façade de-risked the Red Deer courthouse

Peter Dushenski

ZWOF Vancouver 2026 Canada ArchitectureVancouverMass timberIndigenous Design

Making culture material: how Indigenous stories are being translated into façade and form

Avery Guthrie, Ouri Scott & Thomas Oster

ZWOF Vancouver 2026 Canada SustainabilityBuilding ScienceStep CodeEnergy

The 70% you decide before the energy model: why building shape governs façade performance

Ali Zadeh

ZWOF Vancouver 2026 Canada Urban designArchitectureVancouverMass timber

Façades as urban catalysts: an architect’s view of the skin that shapes a city

James Cheng

ZWOF Vancouver 2026 Canada DurabilityFenestrationBuilding ScienceStep Code

Kicking the can: why fenestration durability has to be a day-one conversation

Anton VanDyk

ZWOF Vancouver 2026 Canada Curtain wallArchitectureVancouverEngineering

Crafting intricate forms: engineering the twisting fins of Burrard Gateway Tower 2

Mahsa Adib

ZWOF Vancouver 2026 Canada GlassMaterialsVisualizationRendering

A clear vision of the future: predicting how glass will really look, before it’s built

Ravneet Saini & Martin Durivage

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Europe

ZWOF Lisbon 2026 Portugal Embodied carbonRetrofitDecarbonisation

Transformar edifícios: porque a reabilitação, e não a demolição, é a chave da descarbonização

Liliana Soares, Cláudia Sousa Monteiro, André Caiado, Marcus Cerdeira & Rodrigo Félix

ZWOF Lisbon 2026 Portugal Building physicsSolar shadingGlass

Thermal behaviour in closed cavities: why a low g-value isn’t enough

Robert Weitlaner

ZWOF Lisbon 2026 Portugal ProjectsStructural EngineeringStadiums

Engenharia da pele dos maiores estádios da Europa: Bernabéu, Everton e Camp Nou

Hugo Tavares

ZWOF Lisbon 2026 Portugal Fire safetyLow-CarbonLightweight Facade

Reinventar a pele do edifício: da fachada pesada à envolvente leve em gesso

João Telmo Gabriel

ZWOF Lisbon 2026 Portugal Embodied carbonAdaptive reuseFifth FacadeCertification

Oriente Green Campus: keep, edit, add, a concrete ruin turned into a campus

John Bushell, Tiago Sallas & Miguel Barbas

ZWOF Lisbon 2026 Portugal GlassSustainabilityCircularity

Fechar o ciclo do vidro: float de baixo carbono e o argumento do casco

João Daniel

ZWOF Lisbon 2026 Portugal AluminiumProjectsIndustrialisation

Fachadas em transformação: porque a industrialização é agora inevitável

Sergio Domingos

ZWOF Lisbon 2026 Portugal Façade engineeringReuseStructural glass

O engenho da transparência: quando o vidro deixa de ser revestimento e passa a ser estrutura

Nuno Barbedo

ZWOF Lisbon 2026 Portugal Fire safetyMaterialsAluminium

Liberdade para criar: o painel compósito de alumínio como ferramenta de desenho de fachada

Victor Fortanete

ZWOF Lisbon 2026 Portugal CeramicsGeometryStructural Engineering

Geometrias complexas: da visão arquitetónica à realidade construtiva

Jorge Moreira

ZWOF Lisbon 2026 Portugal GlassCircularityLow-CarbonPortugal

Closing the loop: low-carbon glass and recovering cullet from old façades

João Daniel

ZWOF Lisbon 2026 Portugal Embodied carbonAluminiumSustainability

Building with intent: where a building’s carbon really is

Guillaume Nijdam & Filip Van Mieghem

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UK

ZWOF Manchester 2026 United Kingdom ProjectsUKZWOF Man 26PlacemakingRegeneration

Shaping everyday wonder: regrowing Manchester

Lucy Head & Daniel Onions

ZWOF Manchester 2026 United Kingdom UKZWOF Man 26SustainabilityCarbonResilience

The power of ten: AHR's ten steps to a more resilient façade

Robert Hopkins

ZWOF Manchester 2026 United Kingdom ProjectsTerracottaUKZWOF Man 26Acoustics

Heritage at height: engineering a terracotta tower on Whitworth Street

Paul Crowther & Elena Giraldi

ZWOF Manchester 2026 United Kingdom ProjectsUKZWOF Man 26CostPanel

Greater Manchester rising: identity, cost, and who really decides the façade

Giovanni Gori, Daniel Mossman-Clark, Aaron Dehara & Damien Bourke

ZWOF Manchester 2026 United Kingdom Façade engineeringFire safetyUKZWOF Man 26

Engineering fire safety into a complex façade: the NESST case study

Camille Destres & Iain Gray

ZWOF Manchester 2026 United Kingdom Façade engineeringCurtain wallUKZWOF Man 26Movement

A façade that moves: engineering for deflection

Andrew Bird

ZWOF Manchester 2026 United Kingdom UKZWOF Man 26SustainabilityCarbonDigital

Double or triple glazed? Ramboll's data-driven answer

Amaldev Premkumar

ZWOF Manchester 2026 United Kingdom Building physicsUKZWOF Man 26SustainabilityAirtightness

Move the airtight line outside: condensation and air-tightness

Nick Backhouse

ZWOF Manchester 2026 United Kingdom MaterialsUKZWOF Man 26CladdingDesign

Beyond performance: the psychology of a façade

Ian Wilson

ZWOF Manchester 2026 United Kingdom Fire safetyBuilding safetyComplianceUKZWOF Man 26

Getting through the gateways: what the Building Safety Regulator actually wants

Sean Robinson & Craig Renton

ZWOF London 2025 United Kingdom Digital fabricationXi’anCraft

Embedding emotion at Xi’an CCBD

Alexis Harrison, Maela Allegretti & Nick Ling

ZWOF London 2025 United Kingdom ArchitectureAdaptive reuseLongevity

Designing façades that can survive changing ideas

Simon Allford

View all UK

Middle East, Africa, Turkey & CIS

ZWOF Dubai 2026 United Arab Emirates Façade engineeringProjectsArchitectureDubai

TeamLab Phenomena: an envelope asked to keep changing

Tony Abi Gebrayel

ZWOF Dubai 2026 United Arab Emirates MaterialsDubaiDurabilityCoatings

Where surfaces shape skylines: building a coating to beat the benchmark

Prathush Sreedharan

ZWOF Dubai 2026 United Arab Emirates GlassWell-beingDubaiResearch

Solar control glass and human well-being: what light does to us

Benjamin Beer, Arwa Alzaabi, Jasmin Hodzic, Renato Cilento & Subraya Kalkura

ZWOF Dubai 2026 United Arab Emirates DubaiEngineeringComputationAccess

Smart façades, smarter access: making freeform geometry buildable, and cleanable

Gizelle Javidan & Shyam Chand

ZWOF Dubai 2026 United Arab Emirates MaterialsAluminiumSustainabilitySelf-cleaning

Self-cleaning aluminium: an anodised skin that uses sunlight to stay clean

Fan Lee

ZWOF Dubai 2026 United Arab Emirates High-riseGlassDubaiEngineering

Same material, different physics: a façade across extreme scales

Celeste Gariando

ZWOF Dubai 2026 United Arab Emirates ProjectsDubaiSustainabilityDelivery

Program-managing sustainability: net zero across Expo 2020 and an airport

Nandan Tavkar

ZWOF Dubai 2026 United Arab Emirates ParametricDubaiSustainabilityEngineering

Parametric modelling for a façade that has to balance everything at once

Jincy Mariam Rinu & Elia Galatolo

ZWOF Dubai 2026 United Arab Emirates DubaiInnovationEngineeringKinetic facades

kinetIQ: making the façade move

Ralph Damköhler

ZWOF Dubai 2026 United Arab Emirates ArchitectureDubaiDesignEngineering

Inevitable design: when the right idea makes its own form

Oana Fayyad & Marina Kindelan Calvo

ZWOF Dubai 2026 United Arab Emirates GlassPerformanceDubaiSustainability

Designing high-performance glass: solar control, bird-friendly façades, and an AI that specs them

Ahmed Abuhashem

ZWOF Dubai 2026 United Arab Emirates PerformanceDubaiCollaborationDelivery

The façade mindset: success is decided before design begins

Osama Abbas

View all Middle East, Africa, Turkey & CIS

India

ZWOF Chennai 2026 India SustainabilityFenestrationThermal BreakEnergy Efficiency

Where the heat gets in: the thermal break, now required by code

Abhishek Shukla

ZWOF Chennai 2026 India High-riseFire safetyRainscreenSintered Stone

The tested skin: sustainable cladding for high-rise buildings

TS Aditya

ZWOF Chennai 2026 India Fire safetySustainabilityInsulationPassive Fire Protection

System, not product: what actually gives a façade its fire rating

G Subham

ZWOF Chennai 2026 India Curtain wallSustainabilityAluminium systemsHospitality

The strategic envelope: bespoke engineering, transomless glass and green aluminium

Harsharaj Shetty K S

ZWOF Chennai 2026 India Unitised façadesCurtain wallPrefabricationDouble-skin façades

Scaling smart skins: jumbo panels, a cantilevered glass box, and stone on a unitised wall

Rohan Keswani

ZWOF Chennai 2026 India Façade engineeringCurved GlassArchitectureAcoustics

Precision by design: keeping faith with the render, all the way to site

Yogesh Tantia

ZWOF Chennai 2026 India SustainabilityACPMetal CladdingStandards & Compliance

Metal cladding, held to account: speed, standards and the EPD

Uday V Shetty

ZWOF Chennai 2026 India Green façadesBiophilic designSustainabilityKeynote

The living façade: when a building’s skin becomes a threshold, not a boundary

James Tan

ZWOF Chennai 2026 India WorkplaceArchitectureHuman ExperienceGCC

Experience is everything: designing the workplace from the inside out

Naseera Razak & Aditya Goel

ZWOF Chennai 2026 India ArchitectureBiophilic designSustainabilityEcological Design

Inside out: dissolving the line between building, landscape and life

Dhurgai Kumaran

ZWOF Chennai 2026 India ResidentialMaterialsValue engineeringArchitecture

The face of the building: visual impact and climate, on a realistic budget

Prashanth S Kharche

ZWOF Chennai 2026 India EngineeringCollaborationChennaiDelivery

From concept to delivery: closing the gap between the drawing and the building

Shrikrishna Ginde, Sruthi Reddy, R. Vijayan, Ajay Sethi, Rohit Sharma & Pratik Doshi

View all India

Asia-Pacific

ZWOF Melbourne 2026 Australia AluminiumDurabilityCoatingsSelf-cleaning

Clean by sunlight: inorganic self-cleaning anodised aluminium

Fan Lee

ZWOF Melbourne 2026 Australia Façade engineeringComplianceRegulationProfessional Practice

What is a façade engineer? The DBPA scope-and-competency panel

Tom Donald, Gareth Winstanley, Elizabeth Carpenter, Vera Tchikina & Alison Potter

ZWOF Melbourne 2026 Australia CondensationWindowsWeatherproofingWind Load

From risk to resilience: awning windows, wind loads and condensation

Elissa Stirling

ZWOF Melbourne 2026 Australia Building physicsStructural glassCondensationWaterproofing

A pool with a view: keeping water out, in, and off the glass

Brian Hubbs

ZWOF Melbourne 2026 Australia GRCFaçade engineeringGlassCurved Glass

A veil of curved glass: the Paula Fox Melanoma Centre

Anne-Laure Chappat

ZWOF Melbourne 2026 Australia Fire safetySustainabilityBIPVSolar Facades

PV and solar façades, from design to delivery: the Melbourne panel

Oliver Ng, Pete Kennon, Bobby Wei, Blair Stratton & Stefan Brey

ZWOF Melbourne 2026 Australia Façade engineeringFabricationStructural glassComplex Geometry

The world’s most complex façades: hanging glass and structural trusses

Andreas Geyer

ZWOF Melbourne 2026 Australia Fire safetySustainabilitySteelWindows

The master of materials: steel façades, windows and doors

Philippe Juliard

ZWOF Melbourne 2026 Australia Embodied carbonGlassComplianceCircularity

Halloween horror stories: façade failures and the façade as an asset

Rob Buck

ZWOF Melbourne 2026 Australia Embodied carbonAluminiumArchitectureSustainability

‘Design a place, not a building’: Harborside’s low-carbon façade

Gumji Kang

ZWOF Melbourne 2026 Australia HeritageArchitectureTerracottaLow-Carbon

Crafting cities with terracotta: an ancient material, reinvented

Johan Hermijanto

ZWOF Melbourne 2026 Australia Embodied carbonReuseCircularityFiber Cement

The circular façade: refuse, reduce, reuse and design for disassembly

Cedric Pinto

View all Asia-Pacific

Games Daily façade puzzles

Clad·5Guess the five-letter façade word. GroupsSort sixteen terms into four groups. Build-UpOrder the wall layers, outside in.

Interviews

All interviews ›

Interview · The Faces of Façades

The hidden people behind every building

Ahad Ahmed built Zak World of Façades from a single event in a Delhi coffee shop into a platform that now runs in more than 50 countries, yet he calls himself a reluctant speaker, an accidental founde…

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