23rd Edition – Zak World of Façades Singapore

The Inaugural edition of the Zak World of Façades South East Asia conference opened in grandeur to its delegates at the prestigious Marina Bay Sands on the 13th of October 2016. Around 376 delegates consisting of the leading architects, façade consultants, main contractors, developers and fabricators from the South-East Asia region attended the conference. The agenda of the conference comprised of keynote speeches, case studies, product presentations and panel discussions by 27 eminent personalities from the industry.

The event was convened by Stephan Tanno from Schüco International, a well-respected global façade professional. The event started with the welcome address by Andreas Engelhardt & Andreas Caprano who are the Chairman of Schüco International & Technoform Holdings respectively. This was followed by the opening keynote by Mathieu Meur from Meinhardt Façade Technology on glass visual quality where he spoke about the typical issues observed and applicable codes with examples of failures. Speaking next was Brad Wilkins from Gensler who spoke about outward-tilted glass in façades, their advantages, details for buildability and cost implications. Thorsten Siodla from Technoform spoke on thermal bridging and how thermal break is a must for tropical countries with research study examples. This concluded the session and was followed by a networking break.

The second session started off with a presentation by Michael Chin from Arup who spoke on sustainable design strategies in façade with case studies of their iconic projects in Singapore and also touched upon the WELL rating standard. It was then the turn of Stephan Tanno from Schüco International to speak on façade details for low energy consumption where he spoke about the importance of linking HVAC and façades which is generally ignored. The next speaker Charu Kokate from Moshe Safdie was the special keynote presenter and she spoke on the case studies on the façade design of the iconic Marina Bay Sands, Jewel Changi and Sky Habitat. The session ended with a panel discussion on energy codes, ratings and guidelines for facades where the new Green Mark version was discussed and how it will affect the design of façades going forward.

The third session post lunch kicked off with a presentation by the legend himself Joe Khoury from ALT Cladding who spoke about his experience on FAQ’s in façades. This was followed by presentation from Charlene Smith from PPG Industries on their performance glass and their strategic tie up with JinJing to service the Asian market. Christoph Troska from Trosifiol spoke next on which interlayer to use for which application. Yannis Angelis from Elval Colour then spoke on the importance of a coil coated in the building envelope. Paul Tsalolikhin from Hilti spoke on their innovative firestopping materials which are used in curtain wall edge-of-slabs. Suhel Kachwala from FG Glass ended the session with a presentation on the importance of daylighting and using innovative glass solutions to harness daylight in a building.

The final session of the day had Agnes Koltay from Koltay Façades speaking on the iconic Opus project in Dubai designed by Zaha Hadid Architects which has a complex geometry and many complex glass types. Chengde Huang from CSG spoke next on their range of performance glass for façades and the conference ended by a very engaging panel discussion on understanding façade process management with expert views from an architect, façade consultant, main contractor, façade sub-contractor and a quantity surveyor.
This debut edition of Zak World of Façades South East Asia in Singapore was a stupendous success and was highly appreciated for its content, key decision makers who attended the event, ambience, networking break-out sessions and more importantly imparting the knowledge about the latest innovations in façades and designing sustainable façades for the tropics.