Façade Idea #7 | Designing with Residents
Putting People at the Centre of Façade Renovation
How can industrialised renovation remain fast, affordable, and scalable while responding to the needs of the people who live behind the façade?
At OpenFace Day 2026, Julie Daniels from TU Delft presented A Value-Responsive Modular Façade System, a project that brings residents into the façade design process.
Designing with residents, not just for them
Industrialised renovation is essential for meeting Europe’s climate targets. However, standardisation often leaves little room for the individual needs of residents.
Julie’s research proposes a different approach: translating residents’ priorities—such as comfort, affordability, identity, sustainability, and empowerment—into measurable façade design criteria.
The project introduces a Value–Indicator Framework that links social values to technical façade parameters, creating a modular system where performance remains standardised while the resident-facing layer can adapt to different priorities.
The result is a façade that is not only energy efficient, but also responsive to the people who use it every day. By integrating resident values from the earliest design stages, the project demonstrates how industrialised renovation can remain efficient while becoming more inclusive and people-centred.
About the author
Julie Daniels is a Building Technology graduate from TU Delft. Her research focuses on façade engineering, building physics, and the social dimension of housing renovation, exploring how resident values can become part of façade design.