Breaking the boundaries of glass

© 2014 EPFL

© 2014 EPFL

The international Challenging Glass conference was organized at EFPL from 6 – 7 February 2014 with the aim of gathering world class designers, engineers and researchers on the Architectural and Structural Applications of Glass. Marilyne Andersen, Head of the Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Performance-Integrated Design (LIPID) and Dean of the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering ENAC was invited to provide a keynote presentation about her work on Daylighting and Building Envelopes.

The objective of the conference was to enhance the structural application of glass in buildings and facades. In this frame Marilyne Andersen’s talk entitled “A permeable interface for daylight and solar harvesting” explored current research efforts at the interface between architecture and building technology, with a focus on the integration of building performance in design as far as daylighting and passive solar strategies are concerned. The conference also benefited from the following other keynote speakers: Graham Dodd, from (ARUP UK), Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Manfred Grohmann, from Bollinger + Grohmann Ingenieure (DE), Frankfurt, Jacques Raynaud, from RFR Paris (FR), and Paul Vincent, from Renzo Piano Building Workshop (FR). It was organized by Dr Christian Louter, Dr Freek Bos, Prof. Jan Belis and Prof. Jean-Paul Lebet, and was hosted by the Structural Glass Research Group at ICOM Steel Structures Laboratory of ENAC-EPFL.