“We change by season, in winter we wear quilted jackets, and a T-shirt in summer. But houses don’t respond. Then we simply more or less pump hot air into them,” said Stefan Behnisch of Stuttgart-based office Behnisch Architekten at the “adaptive Gebäudehüllen” symposium, that took place on February 25, 2016 at TU Munich.

The façade is the outside wall of our public space, it creates identity, the architect adds. And it also helps to master the climatic and technical challenges. Roman Schieber of Knippers Helbig - Advanced Engineering, likewise based in Stuttgart, Thomas Auer of Transsolar who is attached to TU Munich, and Frank Kaltenbach of Munich’s Detail magazine, Manfred Dittmar of EControl-Glas, a Plauen-based manufacturer, and Bernhard Schmitt of Glasbau Hahn Lamellenfenster, all showed how adaptive facades can change architecture.

All the speakers expected to see improvements in the fields of solar protection, energy efficiency and not least design. And the one or other listener may have been surprised that the adaptive abilities of building facades that take their cue from humans and nature is not exactly a new topic but is one that intrigues architects and developers centuries back, too. (mm)

To find out more from the complete recordings of the symposium: