Agenda
Symposium
Thursday, March 26
Times in EDT
8:00 – 9:30 AM
9:30 – 9:40 AM
9:40 – 9:45 AM
9:45 – 10:00 AM
10:00 – 10:45 AM
10:45 – 11:15 AM
11:15 AM – 12:00 PM
Panelists will share their manufacturing expertise on technologies that contribute to meeting evolving building codes, improving occupant comfort, and reducing environmental impact, ultimately shaping the future of high-performance building envelopes.
12:00 – 12:45 PM
12:45 – 1:00 PM
1:00 – 2:00 PM
2:00 – 2:15 PM
2:15-3:00 PM
3:00-3:45 PM
3:45-4:15 PM
4:15-5:15 PM
5:15 PM
5:15 – 7:15 PM
Workshops
Friday, March 27
Times in EDT
Held in person at the New York Law School, participants will engage with the industry’s leading design professionals in an intimate, classroom-style setting. Select between four thematic tracks including: sustainability, detailing, materiality, and technology.
Choose the Tracks that most interest you and dive-deep into project typologies, technologies, and techniques to grow your knowledge and practice.
9:30 – 10:00 AM
TRACK A
Energy, Sustainability, and Resiliency
Combined with growing expectations for high performance, building enclosure design is now required to satisfy a large number of performance parameters that were not given a great deal of consideration in the past. Building enclosures were always expected to be durable and address issues like energy efficiency, daylighting, indoor air quality, fire safety, thermal comfort, and carbon footprint, but now with aggressive changes in code and the climate crisis the urgency to decarbonize our building envelopes and radically reduce operational carbon is every designers responsibility.
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
In this workshop, participants will explore how architecture responds to climate by reimagining iconic buildings in new environmental contexts.
Led by Rodrigo Borghino and Ricardo Díaz, “Moved by Climate: Bioclimatic Thinking for Adaptive Facade Design”invites architects, consultants, and engineers to analyze how changing a building’s location transforms its performance needs.
Through guided bioclimatic analysis, attendees will assess climate data, interpret thermal and solar variables, and redefine facade components to meet new contextual demands. By relocating buildings from New York, Los Angeles, and Monterrey, the exercise reveals how design intelligence adapts when architecture moves — and how a truly bioclimatic mindset drives technical specification, comfort, and sustainability.
Note: Please bring your laptop/ iPad for the interactive portions of this session.
12:30 – 2:30 PM
2:45 – 4:45 PM
TRACK B
In the Details: Facade Design, Engineering + Project Delivery
Clients demand attractive and high-performing buildings and as designers, you need to zoom in on fundamental design principles to achieve performance goals. This track will feature the opportunity to detail and collaborate on high-design, and high performance facades.
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
TM Light will share their collaborative process behind a number of the Lighting Design firm’s projects such as Cartier Flagship in Miami’s Design District with Diller Scofidio and Renfro; ArtPark and Thaden School with Marlon Blackwell; the Texas State Capitol legislative chambers; and Prada’s temporary flagship façade with 2×4. The session explores how the team conceives the illumination of facades in a manner that transforms throughout the day and night—shifting in material expression and luminosity over time. Participants will gain insight into how optical materials, custom frits, and lighting design are choreographed to create dynamic facades through close collaboration between architect and lighting designer.
12:30 – 2:30 PM
This two-hour workshop will provide an overview of load paths, jointing, and tolerances in exterior enclosures. The workshop will begin with a lecture on the basics of load paths, including how loads are transferred through a building structure. The lecture will also discuss the different types of joints used in exterior enclosures, as well as the factors, such as tolerances, that need to be considered when designing and detailing joints.
The second half of the workshop will be an interactive whiteboard exercise in which participants will work with the presenters to develop solutions to a handful of specific details. This exercise will give participants the opportunity to apply the concepts they learned in the lecture and to gain experience in working with tolerances and building movements.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the basics of load paths in exterior enclosures
- Identify the different types of joints used in exterior enclosures
- Understand the factors that need to be considered when designing and detailing joints
- Develop solutions to specific details that take into account load paths, tolerances, and building movements.
Audience: This workshop is intended for architects, engineers, contractors, and other professionals who are involved in the design, construction, or maintenance of exterior enclosures.
2:45 – 4:45 PM
TRACK C
Multimaterial Facades in Practice
Material selection not only impacts aesthetics but the delivery and performance of a building. These deep-diving case studies will discuss working with materials such as terra-cotta, mass timber, and more with lessons learned through real world case studies in both ground up and adaptive reuse scenarios.
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
This conversation will explore how architecture, specifically facade design, shapes both neighborhood identity and brand presence. At the Treadwell, the design draws on a culturally contextual approach that merges the cool modernism of Midtown’s Art Deco towers with the warm, rusticated textures of the Upper East Side’s Romanesque residences. This blend results in a modernist yet contextual expression rooted in New York tradition. The panel will also dive into the practical realities of facade design, from cost, construction, and supply chain availability to material experimentation. At the Treadwell, fluted limestone-colored terracotta panels are paired with bronze bands in a layered composition that emphasizes both craft and verticality. The rigid bronze metal bands which trace up the center of the facade on all four sides and also wrap around each floor provide a consistent facade design to allow the rain screen cladding to be studied in multiple materials at different price points and supply chain availabilities. Ultimately, terracotta was selected as the rain screen cladding. Voices from development, marketing, construction, and manufacturing will offer a multidimensional perspective on how buildings communicate identity, place, and purpose.
12:30 – 2:30 PM
2:45 – 4:45 PM
TRACK D
Technology: Research, Development, and Design Tools
Innovation is driving architecture and Advances in facade design, especially in the realm of digital design and advanced fabrication, are fundamentally changing how architects work. Notably, firms across the country are increasingly relying on in-house teams to develop custom software and play an integral role in the design-assist of facade components. Each team will presenting their methodologies and tools that are being implemented in real world projects.
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Other than limited special cases, there is a lack of standards providing guidance on the design of structural glass in the United States and much of the world. This has resulted in an ad-hoc approach by cities (authorities having jurisdiction), architects, and engineers. This paper outlines the key aspects of designing with glass in a manner that has reliability and robustness consistent with other structural materials while recognizing the unique aspects of glass. This voluntary design manual is aimed at providing 4 consistent levels of risk in applications that allow Architects, Owners and Engineers to have an informed decision-making process for selecting levels of robustness, which may or may not be otherwise required by code. The document aims at developing consistent practices to facilitate confident design in glass while also addressing a number of technical challenges.
12:30 – 2:30 PM
With NYC’s adoption of the IECC 2024/ASHRAE 90.1-2022 energy standards, design professionals will be required to address thermal bridges with a new level of rigor. Elements that were once treated as secondary design considerations, such as steel penetrations, slab edges, and parapet connections, will now play a critical role in meeting the envelope performance standards prescribed by this next generation of energy codes. At the same time, many project teams may face uncertainty regarding topics such as compliance paths, material selection, product selection, structural design, constructability, and fire resistance. We have designed this workshop to bridge those gaps by providing a multidisciplinary, hands-on exploration of structural thermal breaks and the new requirements governing them.
At the start of the workshop, we will provide an overview of the fundamentals of thermal bridging and how apparently “small” details can have a disproportionate impact on envelope thermal performance – the “why” of thermal breaks. We will then describe how the new energy codes define and regulate these conditions and require their documentation on the project drawings. Next, we will outline the structural considerations for thermal break design, including product limitations, load paths, and delegated design coordination. Finally, we will cover key compliance considerations related to combustible thermal break materials. We will summarize the implications of NFPA 285, concealed space protection, and material flammability requirements, and provide guidance for integrating thermal breaks without compromising code or fire performance.
Throughout the workshop, attendees will engage in short, interactive exercises that allow them to analyze facade details from three perspectives: thermal performance, structural design, and fire/code compliance.
Join us for a practical, hands-on workshop that demystifies the new thermal bridging requirements, illustrates the real-world implications of structural thermal breaks, and equips project teams with the tools to design envelope systems that are efficient, code-compliant, and structurally sound.
Audience:
Architects, engineers, contractors, developers, and any other professionals involved in the design, construction, testing, and performance verification of facades.
2:45-4:45 PM
