Smart windows. Intelligent adaptive components towards responsive net-zero architectures

Recent developments that have allow objects provided with great innovations, determined, even in architecture, great evolutions. Interests of various disciplines have been directed not only to the production of sustainable architecture but also towards smart buildings, capable of adapting to the external variability and to the needs of their end-users. Given the significant role that building envelope plays in effective architecture, the field for which these new technologies have enormous potential is that of fenestration, responsible for a significant amount of heat gain/losses and still affected by coordination criticalities during the execution phase due to the lack of a mandatory norm that regulates the installation operations. Although in recent years a significant step in this direction has been made, devices on-the market available still present limits due to the integration of components from separate production cycles, assembled with a common idea - to ensure interface’s continuity and performance - but able to offer only static performances. The opportunities offered by ICT technologies, already fully soaked in some building areas, if applied to transparent components would allow to concretely hypothesize the implementation of new products with optimized performance, able to interact with users thanks to the presence of smart sensors able to detect real-time data and relevant information for the rationalization of productive processes as well as for the definition of strategies more conscious and effective.