Building Envelopes

Modern building envelopes can fulfill a variety of functions and tasks, for example by regulating the supply of daylight, solar heat generation and fresh air supply. In addition, glazing and thermal insulation systems protect against climatic influences and the building envelope can generate solar power with integrated photovoltaic modules. Building envelopes must also meet architectural and aesthetic requirements.

Fraunhofer ISE researches and develops solutions to optimize the multifunctional properties of building envelopes. In addition to technological issues, we also take architectural and economic considerations into account.

Together with industrial partners, we develop new components, optimize existing products and market patented in-house developments. We advise building owners and planners on the use of modern solutions. We also test components and façades in our DIN EN ISO/IEC 17025 accredited laboratories and in our outdoor test stands. We use precise individual measurements and simulation tools to analyze components, products and systems and identify potential for optimization. We create prototypes on industry-oriented devices whose production processes can be transferred to commercial systems.

The architectural design of our functional façade elements is particularly important to us. We achieve this, for example, with the colored coatings of our patented MorphoColor® technology and with modular, individually combinable solutions.

Together with our customers, we create digital product data or product models (digital twins) and thus drive forward the digitalization of solar building envelope components.

Fields of Work

In the research topic “Building Envelopes” we focus on the following fields of work:

Component Evaluation

for building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), HVAC integration and solar shading

Planning Support

for building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), HVAC integration, solar shading

Development of BIPV-Façades

Selected Research Projects

 

MASS-IPV

Enabling Massive Integration of PV into Buildings and Infrastructure

 

EQWIN-P

Increasing the Energy Quality and Cost-Effectiveness of Building Envelopes Through Efficient Provision and Use of Product Data in Planning Software

 

SolarEnvelopeCenter

Planning Support for the Solarization of the Building Envelope in New and Existing Buildings

 

BIPV Initiative Baden-Württemberg

Building-integrated Photovoltaics

Current Publications on the Topic “Building Envelopes"