Being the major part or even the whole building envelope, facades impact significantly the performance of the buildings. Highly glazed facades provide a distinctive look, but may often require a specialized knowledge in order to ensure a good solar and thermal performance.

Inform Design's goal is to add value in projects by suggesting facade options that serve design and ensure enhanced envelope and building performance. Our approach considers the overall performance of the facades including impact on building physics and indoor climate.

Our contribution in projects is twofold:
(a) qualify and quantify the alternatives suggested by designers, assess their performance and communicate the benefits of each option
(b) get actively involved in the creative process by suggesting options that can improve the facade performance, compliment the architectural vision and keep quality and costs to satisfactory level

Highly-glazed facades: our role is to touch base with everyday problems
(a) properly assess the performance of glazing and shading systems
(b) properly account for manual or automated controls in the simulation process
(c) suggest solutions that maximize views and daylight while minimizing overheating risk

Advanced facades: our contribution is to assess performance of complex facades and advise on solutions that maximize their benefits. Key point in this process is our deep understanding of the systems and their potentials and the use of elaborated methods that can capture the physics. An example of such systems is Double Skin Facades (DSFs).

The project added value includes selecting proper glass and shading combinations to satisfy four aspects:
(a) Real-life performance: high quality of daylight, connection to the outdoors & privacy
(b) low frequency of shading use
(c) adequate solar performance
(d) sound indoor climate