8th Edition – Zak World of Façades India

Taking a cue from the current trend of tall buildings and building on the glory of enormous success of the previous editions, ZAK World of Façades in its season two, returned to Mumbai on 11th of April at ITC Maratha with a never before confluence of première façade consultants, high profile architects and real estate honchos from India and abroad. More than 421 delegates, all key representations from the top architectural firms, developer community, façade consultants, contractors and other façade enthusiasts discussed and pondered over the theme of façade design criteria for tall structures with special focus on façades for residential and hospitality. Performance criteria such as thermal efficiency, fireproofing, acoustics, photovoltaics, façade testing and more were also discussed.

The conference started with an informative case study of ‘Façade of Burj Vista Tower’ by Brad Frey who’s the Senior Façade Consultant at Koltay Facades, Dubai. Presenting next was Mahesh Arumugam, Director of Meinhardt Consultancy, who spoke on “Building Façade Integrated Photovoltaics”. Up next wasAycaOzcanlar, Senior Façade Consultant at ARUP, Singapore, who explained about the ‘Façade performance criteria for tall structures’. The pre-lunch session saw two stupendous lectures. While the first presenter – Dr. Prashanth Reddy, MD, FunderMax mystified the audience with ‘Bold & Beautiful Facades’,RajanGovind from Building Envelope Specialists, captivated them with an intriguing explanation on ‘Combating façade failures’. The session ended with an interactive group discussion moderated by K R Suresh, Regional Director, Axis Façades on “Façade design and engineering for tall buildings” which included panelistsArNilabh Nagar, Senior Associate, Architect Hafeez Contractor, SharanHiremath, SVP Real Estate, Reliance Industries, RajanGovind and JawaharHemrajani, Director, Glass Wall Systems.

The third session began with a never before congregation of key industry stalwarts vis-à-vis AshishJauhri, Design Director, DSP Design Associates, Nitin Kumar, CEO, Fairwood Project Management, Ragupathy S, VP Infrastructure & Planning at TCS, Anup Mathew, Business Head – Construction Division, Godrej & Boyce, SonaliBedre, Director, Alumayer and Tariq Kachwala, Director, FG Glass along with two guests of honor – SS Warick, Jt. Chief Fire Officer, MIDC and Sunil H Nesarikar, Dy. Chief Fire Officer, Mumbai Fire Brigade. The leaders discussed on a critical topic of “Fire Safety in Façades” and the discussion was moderated by SelvamRamanathan, CEO, Geotrix Building Envelopes.

To sum up the session, a few very informative presentations were made highlighting the latest innovations in façade technology. PV Somasundaram, Vice President at 3A Composites gave an insight on fire rated cladding solutions. Next to present was Rahul Miskeen, VP Design at Glass Wall Systems, who spoke about “Designing a unitized curtain wall system integrated with windows”. The session ended with a high voltage presentation by Anil Agarwal from Global Aluminium who spoke about the “High precision profiles for curtain walls”.

The last session focussed on the upcoming trend of ‘Glazed Residences and facades for residential and hospitality sector’. It started with TarekBassil from MomentivePerformace Materials talking about ‘Next generation structural sealants’. It was followed by GrazianoD’Mellio from Lavaal who showed an interactive video on ‘Hardware for facades technology’. Last presentation of the day was an interesting and inspiring affair when K R Suresh showed some unconventional but practically usable material for façade building.

The end of the conference saw the experts talk about standards and guidelines for facades in residential and hospitality segment in an exciting and engaging panel discussion. Moderated by AmitMalhotra, the panelists included Ar. VivekBhole, Principal, Neomodern Architects, Amar Tendulkar, SVP, Planning and Design, Omkar Realtors and Developers,KamleshChoudhari, Director, Glass Wall Systems, Ar.ShekharPatki, Principal, PG Patki Associates, Mahesh Arumugam, Dr. AnanyaGandotra, Head – Technical Services Group, Taj Group, Ar. Ravi Sarangan, Director, Edifice Architects and Dr. Prashanth Reddy from FunderMax.

The exhibition display showcased some of the exclusive engineering components for façades, which included aluminium extrusions from Global Aluminium, glazing tapes fromPentagon, hardware from KinLong and Archintex, sealants from GE Sealants and McCoy Soudal, high pressure laminates from Fundermax, innovative cladding materials fromAlucobond, VM Zinc and Terreal, high performance glass from Modiguard, Aluminium processing machinery from Elumatec and façade access equipment from SISA Engineering.Glass Wall Systems showcased their solutions for façade engineering.

This edition of Zak World of Façades was the second in the second phase of the series that shall mark a significant change in the façade industry in India with the setting up and formalization of the IFFA guidelines for façade and fenestration.