Why are adaptive facades not widely used in practice? Identifying ecological and economical benefits with life cycle assessment

The challenges concerning climate change require innovative approaches. Adaptive façades (AF) represent a promising approach, as making the façade adaptable brings several benefits such as less energy usage or increased comfort. Nevertheless, they are not widely used in practice, since the known advantages/motivators appeal in particular to stakeholders who have little involvement in the decision-making of the design process and entail compromises to stakeholders who do. In this article it is shown that besides the known advantages and compromises of AF, there are further motivators for stakeholders with high decision-making power. In a case study, a building with typical centralized ventilation is compared with a building where an AF with an integrated ventilation system was installed to substitute the centralized ventilation system. This results in a lower building height and corresponding weight of the construction, as the central duct system can be eliminated. 3 m of building height and up to 340 tons of material can be saved, which results in avoided impact on climate change of 110 tons CO2-eqviv. (-7%). During utilization, 615 tons of CO2-eqviv. Can be avoided. The lifecycle costs can be reduced by 485,000 € while the rentable floor space can be increased by 4%.