The building skin has evolved enormously over the past decades. Energy performance and environmental quality of buildings are significantly determined by the building envelope. The façade has experienced a change in its role as an adaptive climate control system that leverages the synergies between form, material, mechanical and energy systems in an integrated design.

The PowerSkin Conference aims to address the role of building skins to accomplish a carbon neutral building stock. Topics suc...

The PowerSKIN Conference aims to address the role of building skins to accomplish a carbon neutral building stock. Topics such as building operation, embodied energy, energy generation and storage in context of envelope, energy and environment are considered.

The focus of the PowerSKIN issue 2021 deals with the question of whether simplicity and robustness stay in contradiction to good performance of buildings skins or whether they even complement each other: simplicity vs. performance?

As an...