Facade Tectonics Institute Delivers Fifth Regional Forum at Rice University

The Facade Tectonics Institute (FTI)—a premier member organization for building industry professionals, academic, government and nonprofit organizations and institutions that recognize the building facade system as the lynchpin to sustainable buildings and urban habitat—hosted its fifth 2019 Regional Forum in the Material Mattersseries at Rice University.

FTI is widely recognized for producing the leading technical events focused on buildings and urban habitat through the lens of the building skin. FTI’s celebrated Forum series focuses on industry issues, trends and emerging technologies as they relate to buildings, their facade systems and the built environment.

The full-day Forum presented four expert-led discussions relating to specific themes analyzing the future of facade systems, urban habitat and the built environment within southeastern Texas. Speaker presentations focused on flood-resistant structures for enhanced resilience, the emergence, evolution and proliferation of cladding materials, techniques for designing and retrofitting facades to protect against wind-borne debris and facade system considerations for hot and humid climates. Each session was followed by a moderated Q&A where panelists had the ability to engage with the audience. The event was attended by leading professionals in the A/E/C/O industry, FTI leadership and members.

About Houston

Houston is ranked as one of the top 10 riskiest places to live in the United States when it comes to natural disasters. For this reason, the city was a perfect place to host a regional Forum as to bring awareness to key industry topics, emerging practices and preventatives that the community can greatly benefit from. It was not more than a few weeks prior to the Forum that Houston experienced flooding. In 2017, Houston was devastated by Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey, both storms resulted in a combined 200 fatalities and innumerable damage to commercial and residential property.

About the Program and Speakers

Erik Verboon of Walter P Moore presented and moderated the panel Texas Flood, which included Colley Hodgesof Kirksey Architecture and Rich Romero of Savannah Trims, Inc.

Mic Patterson of the Facade Tectonics Institute moderated the panel Material Acceleration, which included William Rieck of HOK, Thomas Bayer of HOK and Sheldon Davis of Guardian Glass.

Ron Hull of Kuraray moderated the panel Blown Away, which included Jim Larkin of Curtainwall Design Consulting, Steve Thompson of Texas Department of Insurance and Richard Kaire of Sentech Architectural Systems.

Helen Sanders of Technoform presented and moderated the panel Sweat Equity, which included Andrew Blocha of Perkins + Will, Liz McCormick of University of North Carolina Charlotte and Olivier Brouard of SOM.

“The FTI team was excited to bring our Regional Forum to Houston for the first time and have the opportunity to bring awareness to industry issues and topics that will ultimately impact the Houston community,” said Patterson. “By confronting potential threats to the community, we are able to prepare and protect against inevitable environmental issues.”

“On behalf of The Institute we want to thank our event attendees and event sponsors Schüco, Technoform, Kuraray, Sika and HALIO for your continued support,” said Helen Sanders, President, Facade Tectonics Institute. “We look forward to the prospect of returning to Houston for another Forum.”