Smart Façades: Technological Innovations in Dynamic and Advanced Glazed Building Skins for Energy Saving

This chapter deals with the analysis of the potential offered by the integration of smart solutions in dynamic glass façades to improve buildings’ energy performances. Dynamic solutions are here examined with reference to dry ventilated systems, active and passive cooling, solar gain, greenhouse effect, and technologies able to react and self-regulate, according to the environmental inputs. The first part is dedicated to the state of knowledge, assessing the performance evolution of dynamic and interactive architectural envelopes (smart skins). Then, the core of the chapter is divided into clusters according to different strategies that allow the building skin to react and selfregulate according to the environmental inputs: double-layer glass façades, solar shadings, PV integration, etc. The goal is to produce a sort of “smart skin guideline” divided by requirements/strategies of intervention to investigate a range of solutions able to regulate buildings’ behavior and characterize their image: from systems that allow to transform solar gain into heat to improve buildings’ energy performance in winter season, to others that integrate passive cooling, to systems that transform the façades in a real active element of energy production, thanks to the integration of renewable energy sources.