The first Windows, Doors & Faades event kicked off in Dubai on Sunday highlighting solutions on how to balance complex design with safe materials.

Sami Ahmad Dhaen Al Qamzi, director general of the Department of Economic Development, Dubai Government, inaugurated the three-day show. Al Qamzi then toured the exhibition halls and met a broad range of faade and design engineering companies from the Middle East and abroad that have gathered to launch thousands of innovative products addressing energy saving, sustainability and fire safety challenges.

The exhibition at the Dubai World Trade Centre, running until September 20, showcases a wide range of products for optimising energy retention and management, which comprises embedding the use of plants into the design of buildings, using minimal sliding doors, automated layered glazed panels as well as digital, interactive faades, already popular in major cities around the world.

For the building materials market, the Middle East Facades Summit has five sessions focusing on building fire safety, cooling issues, sound optimisation, and design green principles alongside two showcase presentations of Zaha Hadid projects in Beirut and Dubai.

One of the panel discussions on the opening day addressed how to advance green building principles from a sustainability and energy efficiency point of view, moderated by Scott Coombes, director of AESG, the energy and sustainability consultancy.

The expert panelists identified how different sustainability ratings systems compare, and analysed the importance of effective maintenance and property and asset management to ensure a building's long-term operational efficiency.

Coombes said: "The GCC faade market is growing year on year by approximately seven per cent and is currently worth $5 billion for the glass sector alone. There are some fascinating projects in the UAE right now, in particular in Dubai with projects such as the Expo 2020, the Dubai Water Canal and the Dubai Harbour from Emaar."

"These projects show that Dubai is still a booming city and a rapidly growing city. With this in mind, we have to now focus on the climate and environment that exists in this region, and one of the best ways we can respond to that is with the faade materials. As an industry, we're now examining how the performance of a building's facades can work to make them more sustainable, more energy efficient and more responsive to the environment here," Combes said.

The region's only dedicated exhibition for the building materials market also featured 12 CPD certified workshops available for those professionals seeking further expertise in the field.

Muhammed Kazi, exhibition director of Windows, Doors & Faades Event, added: "As the UAE construction industry prepares for the implementation of the new Dubai Civil Defence laws governing the health and safety of construction materials, safety-orientated solutions for windows, doors and faades will have great potential in the already burgeoning$6.7billion GCC market."

"We monitored the demand within this segment as part of The Big 5 Dubai, and the launch of the show is a direct response to feedback from the industry and its great potential for growth. With an emphasis on environmental and energy ratings, safety requirements, and climatic considerations, the faades market has created an important niche in the GCC construction market," Kazi said. -

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