The application of photovoltaic systems is becoming a dominant feature in contemporary buildings. They allow for the achievement of zero-energy constructions. However, the principles of this strategy are not yet sufficiently known among architects. The purpose of this study is to enhance their expertise, which cannot be widened due to the shortage of targeted publications. The issue presentation was structured in a way that follows the typical design stages, beginning with large-scale urban problems up to the scale of building forms and components. Different types of photovoltaic (PV) systems are considered, based on their efficiency, relations with building fabrics, potential for thermally protecting buildings and their impact on esthetic values. The focus was mainly on the most popular PV modules. The application of these systems requires in-depth analyses which should be carried out by designers at the initial stage and through the next stages of the design. A method to analyze zoning plan regulations and site planning in view of PV modules’ efficiency is novel. This paper also contains considerations with regard to some other untypical applications of these systems. There is need for changing attitudes in architects and investors regarding the issue of promoting the systems through further elucidations.

This paper discusses the impact of advanced building techniques, in tune with selected building materials and their physical attributes, applied to complete constitutive interiors components on these components’ environmental performance and aesthetics. There is an understanding of technological practices as essential for the effective management of the design process; still, the creative introduction of advanced building techniques is not commonly recognized by interior architects. The objective of the research is to indicate the possible multidimensional consequences of the analysis of materials’ physical attributes and the consistent application of advanced building techniques to complete interior components. The basis for this study formed the design concepts of aesthetic functionalism, place attachment, and a content-context model of the association between interior components and the building fabric. Some theoretical frameworks were used for a qualitative evaluation of interior components of selected cultural facilities completed in the last decade in Poland. The performance of these components was measured in the function of applied innovative building techniques and specified building materials. Research findings have proved the impact of building techniques on the performance of interior components as instruments to increase interior functional use, formal uniformity, and aesthetic cohesion of buildings and their inner spaces, as well as the scale of multisensorial effectiveness.

Technical durability and aesthetical longevity of building skins are among the fundamental demands of sustainable architecture in terms of building fabric’s physical changes due to deterioration. This concept paper presents a design concept intended to fill the existing gap related to the limited durability of buildings and non-existing design methods for its effective extension. The study concentrates on the anticipation and assimilation of disintegration processes occurring in time into the architectural design methodology to promote the design techniques focused on the visual expression of the coexistence of nature and the artificial in the function of time. This study investigates the building’s enclosure as an active boundary through which the building’s interaction with the natural environment occurs, as well as a regulator of the building’s energy performance and a factor conditioning their durability. The consideration of formal and esthetical deconstruction in architectural design is followed by the analyses of some relevant examples of completed buildings and cultural determinants underlying this issue. The proposed Apparent Destruction Architectural Design (ADAD) concept addresses the time-dependency of the building skins’ physical properties manifested by the deterioration, destruction and re-figuration of the building’s fabric. This design concept offers a solution to the disturbing problem of architecture’s impermanence enhances the issue of sustainability of the building’s fabric in time, becomes a means to search for the unconventional comprehension and vision of architecture, as well as to reframe the architectural design toward its compliance with sustainability postulates through the aesthetic concept.

Contemporary architecture is shaped by the paradigm of sustainability and is characteristic of many solutions determined by a relevant set of principles related to shaping the environment based on the ecology of systems focused on the flow of energy. These design principles concern gaining energy from renewable resources, protection against the loss of thermal energy from buildings, protection against the excess of thermal energy in buildings, and proper distribution of thermal energy in buildings. This paper presents a proposal for a method to analyze some building components used as sustainability-related elements given their formal similarity to historic architectural details or some artworks integrated with buildings. It aims to emphasize the potential of a different perspective from which to perceive and assess buildings, and specifically their architectural details, given their spatial and aesthetic values associated with sustainable technical solutions. This study is based on a few differentiated examples. It proves the relations mentioned above true, given the sustainability paradigm epitomized in technical solutions to contemporary buildings and the related aesthetic features characterizing the relevant architectural detailing. Such a perception of buildings is intended to promote unconventional viewing and assessment of them by the public and professionals in the area of architecture and art. It would make them discover new types of aesthetic values, which are usually invisible.

This research aims to identify the causes of flawed envelope components and materials, and conduct analyses of various exemplary selected cases. The intention was to find ways to extend the lifetime of building facades through suitable and recommended design measures to meet the sustainability requirements. Another goal of this paper is to identify principal errors committed in architectural design at spatial and technical scales, and also to suggest possible technical solutions to ensure the safety of façades. The method used is based on analyses of cases of building façade materials covering various types of buildings and building materials, and classifies them into three different types, which are illustrated and suitably assessed. The results of this work emphasize the insufficient care taken by designers to provide an effective performance of the analyzed building technologies applied to façades and that designers’ knowledge in this aspect of the design process should be enhanced.

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