Plug a Play Facades: Sustainable Facade Refurbishment of Existing Tall Buildings in UAE using Plug a Play approach

The thesis aims to offer a review of a modern conceptual facade focusing on one more possible solution to sustainable facade refurbishment for existing tall buildings. There are thousands of highrise buildings in the world and almost all of them over time will require some degree of refurbishment. The premise of this thesis is based on the rising ecological concern of human-made climate change, and the role building industry has in its effects. The thesis only focuses on a smaller part of the whole sector, namely “curtain wall facades”. But, data suggests that the demand of curtain wall systems is rising when they age or the buildings which already have deteriorated curtain walls for over 30 years will require some degree of intervention to improve the facade quality and the performance of the building using the facade. Alternatively, the increase in maintenance costs and utility costs will render the building undesirable and hence cause premature demolition of the facade or the building itself. Although this thesis only focuses on a specific region, the postulation of this research applies to any location based on region-specific analysis and design solution. The solution will mostly concentrate on feasibility aspects of design for disassembly and integrated functionality (BIPV) into one system, namely Plug a Play facades.