VII International Symposium Aluminium&Glass 2012

The event took place from 14 to 16 September in Sandanski Interhotel and gathered more than 180 architects, engineers, designers and investors. The topic of the forum was Fast vision forward and its purpose was to familiarize the attendees with the best international practices in the field of façade technologies as well as to show the newest developments and products of the organizers.

“I believe in the purpose of this conference, it is mainly to provoke and to start using the new systems and not to be afraid that the things are too complicated. If this idea reaches even one third of the audience, I will be happy”, commented the R&D Director of ETEM Group, eng. Veneta Novakova.

To share their experience as guest speakers were invited Abdulmajid Karanouh (BSc in Architecture, MSc in Architecture; Computing & Design and MSc in Façade Engineering)- Associate and member of the Research & Development Group at the London’s office of AEDAS and arch. Yanko Apostolov- principal of Yanko Apostolov Architects, a design studio with offices in New York and Sofia.

The symposium began with the presentation of arch. Karanouh. His source of inspiration is the nature, where everything could be described by the mathematics:” Everything is mathematics and the architects should find their inspiration from the shapes and forms form the nature in order to build sustainable buildings”. He introduced the audience with some of his emblematic buildings and presented in detail a project development from the idea to its realization. This was the project of Al Bahar towers in Abu Dhabi. This project, which should be completed in the next few months, has recently won an award for innovation from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH).

Extremely interesting was the computer controlled sunscreen, developed especially for the project. The unique idea of the screen composed of origami triangles made of coated fiberglass and located two meters away from the exteriors of the building is inspired from old techniques–the Middle East has used complex shade-producing wooden lattices called masharabiya for hundreds of years. The logic behind using a masharabiya is fairly straightforward: Prevent the sunlight and heat from getting into the building so you can lower the emphasis on cooling a building. Each triangle is programmed to open when the sun appears and close when the sun is gone. The requirement for air conditioning is significantly cut down and reduces the offices’ dependance on artificial light. The mashrabiya moves in accordance with the sun’s position in the sky and is said to reduce the impact of the sun by 50 percent.

For the first time to the wide audience was presented the newest façade system of ETEM- E 99. This is a tailor-made unitized system, developed for the first high rise building in Bulgaria. It was a big challenge for our team to design a system with high performance characteristics and in the same time with low impact to the environment, commented the R&D Director of ETEM Group, eng. Veneta Novakova. It complies with the high requirements for horizontal and vertical loads and slabs movement. The low-rise building B2 and the ‘’podium’’ are realized by combining unitized façade system, stick façade system E 85 and tailor made rain screen cladding for the zones with aluminium panels.

The good combination of original elements in the transition zones and the holistic application of ETEM product concept lead to a completed and memorable outlook of the project.

During the presentation of AGC was announced the new alliance between the company and the German producer of float glass Interpane.

The second guest speaker arch. Yanko Apostolov presented to the guests of the conference his latest urban plans abroad that he has been working on, after his speech Neli Velyova from Dorma showed their newest innovative solutions.

After the official part of the Symposium, the organizers had prepared some entertainment activities like AUDI test drive, petanque and tennis on court tournaments.