Facade Tectonics Forum VANCOUVER: Beyond Glazing + Big Glazing

Join us at façade Tectonics Forum in Vancouver! We’ll have two team members participating in panel discussions titled Big Glazing: The Escalating Challenge of a Centuries-long Trend and Beyond Glazing: Trends, Drivers and What Lies Beyond the Horizon. This Forum is a full-day symposium, providing several educational sessions focused on the evolving considerations and practices of building façade glazing.

Registration information for Façade Tectonics Forum: VANCOUVER can be found here.

Big Glazing – Presentation Overview:

The trend of ever larger lites of glass in the building envelope extends back to the Roman Empire and the first use of window glass in architecture. Increasing complexity accompanies this trend: larger glazing units are more challenging to produce, handle, transport, support and install. This ongoing amplification of complexity is itself a trend in architectural glass development, which now involves extensive post-processing of raw flat glass by heat treating, coating, laminating, and printing, and the use of glass in an increasing array of complex assemblies including insulating, laminated, photovoltaic, electrochromic, spectrally-selective and decorative products. Where are these trajectories headed? What are the considerations that practitioners must account for in using “big glass?”

Yvon Chiasson, Senior Building Science Consultant, will participate in this panel discussion at 8:15 a.m.

Beyond Glazing – Presentation Overview:

Architectural glass presents multiple trajectories into the future, all with potential contribution to a transformative change in the built environment. These trajectories involve the development of glass as a material and as part of a façade assembly, and the evolution of expression of glass in buildings and their façades—both as a vehicle for transparency, translucency and reflection, and as a performative material facilitating daylight and view. In addition, despite the long-running trends of ever more and ever larger lites of glass in the building skin, escalating performance requirements are driving the consideration and use of alternative façade materials.

Stéphane Hoffman, Principal/VP of Façade Engineering, will participate in this panel discussion at 4:15 p.m.

About our Panelists:

Yvon Chiasson, Senior Building Science Consultant
Yvon has over 18 years of consulting experience and works with Morrison Hershfield’s FaçadeEngineering team. He has experience with a number of different envelope materials, years of involvement with R&D, and technical sales of building envelope systems. Utilizing his years of background in the glazing industry, Yvon’s work often brings him to the table with glazing manufacturers to evaluate different systems, as well as to witness manufacturing and testing for enhanced Quality Assurance. Yvon has managed projects for various commercial, high-rise, and institutional buildings, both private and public sector clients.

Stéphane Hoffman, Principal / VP Facade Engineering
As Professional Engineer with a Master’s degree level education that combines structural engineering, building science and architecture, Stéphane brings a well-balanced consulting approach to the building envelope; blending scientific analysis with an understanding of aesthetics considerations.  Stéphane leads Morrison Hershfield’s Façade Engineering and Building Performance Analytics Teams focusing on conceptual design of cladding and glazing systems on projects throughout North America.