Team: The Canyon
Urban Designer: Jordan Comvalius
Urban Designer: Chaz Sweers
Architect: Anne Smeenk
Architect: Bence van der Looij
Climate Designer: Ella Adam
Computational Designer: Sinan Wehrli
Facade Designer: Janvi Dedhia
Structural Designer: Krishna Koushik Venigalla
The MEGA 2025 course at TU Delft is a multidisciplinary design studio focused on the integrated development of complex and large-scale urban architectures in response to the current climate and material crises. The Canyon’s façade strategy was honoured to receive the award for Most Innovative Façade Design among a studio filled with many outstanding and creative façade proposals. It was truly inspiring to see the diverse ideas and dedication of all peers throughout the process.
MEGA addresses the pressing demand for economically viable housing and public services by engaging students in the design of high-density, high-rise buildings and the redevelopment of existing urban areas, particularly where previous development efforts have failed to reconnect fragmented urban fabrics.
The core ambition of MEGA is to see these redevelopment scenarios not as isolated vertical interventions, but as opportunities to interweave environmental performance and resilience, socio-spatial connectivity, and material circularity into one cohesive design narrative.
MEGA engages students in these contradictions through collaborative, digitally supported design work in interdisciplinary teams of six to eight students, each representing a specialized discipline including architecture, structural engineering, façade engineering, climate design, computational design and now, urban design.
Role as a Façade Engineer
It was integral to have a position which could consider architectural, structural, climate/environmental and cost considerations to create the building’s outer envelope. Shaping the building’s identity through material choice, texture, colour, and rhythm, while ensuring interior comfort in terms of thermal performance, daylight, acoustics, and air quality was of prime importance.
Two simple aims that shaped façade designing in this project were experiment and experience to further develop the research and design. Experimenting with materials became the project’s main challenge, because achieving real circularity and long-term resilience at this scale is far harder than on a one-off design with all virgin materials.
With a lot of research and review of precedents, comparing EPD data covering recycled bricks, bio-based insulation, slip-clad sun fins, thermally broken connectors and solar panel optimization let us filter dozens of ideas down to a single facade system that absorbs the team’s design ambitions yet meets the strict carbon targets set for the building.
The Canyon: Design proposal
The Canyon is not just a building, it’s an ambitious, integrated MEGA project that unites six design disciplines under one bold vision. Together, we’ve imagined a future forward architectural statement, rooted in innovation, sustainability, and meaningful connection. We developed a unified vision, distilled into for core principles: Engage - Experience - Experiment - Endure.
Fig 1. – The Canyon: Design vision
These four words shape every decision we made in The Canyon. They form the backbone of a vision that transcends disciplines, establishing strong connections with its urban context, both physically and socially [engage]. It fosters relationships between different functions and encourages interaction between people and the environment, including the integration of green infrastructure and non-human life [experience]. By incorporating bio-based and sustainable materials, the project tests new construction methods and embraces innovation [experiment]. This experimental approach positions the building as adaptable and resilient in the face of changing environmental and technological contexts. The Canyon respects and builds upon the historical context of its site [endure].
Fig. 2 – Stepwise evolution of the building design. 01. Existing building context, 02. Structure and grid preserved, 03. Existing architectural form expansion, 04. Reintroduction of green tops and horizontal lines, 05. Negative space created for city movements, 06. Connect, 07. Open up, 08. Combined approach
We kept the building’s original structural grid both a circular move and a design driver. With reinforcement and the implementation of an exoskeleton, this structure can be retained and adapted for future use. The horizontal lines from the current façade composition will be referenced in the new proposal, maintaining continuity with the existing visual rhythm. Another key intervention is the definition of negative space, a zone for high pedestrian flow that intersects the site. To prevent the creation of isolated zones, a spatial connection will be re-established through a sequence of rising terraces. A final step involves opening the building towards the city, natural daylight and internal circulation. It continued existing urban patterns while introducing a contemporary architectural language, ensuring relevance and longevity over time.
Facade Strategy
Fig. 3 – (from top left) Summer sun, Winter sun, Final Façade Strategy of the project
Circularity drove every facade decision in the project. The final façade scheme was divided into clear zones (Fig 3), each tuned to daylight, views and energy gain. The openings follow the structural span of the existing structure. A surface to sunlight exposure optimization (Fig. 3) was carried out to make sure enough daylight is received through all the designed openings to each spaces as per the standards.
The zone 1&2 (north elevation) really speaks about the building’s character with exposed reused brickwork, flat arches with large openings in the terraced landscape. It tries to communicate its presence to each passerby inviting them inside for the public functions it offers. The zone 2 (east and the south façade) with optimized sunshade forms become the image of the landmark of the Utretcht city and an experience for users of the City Central Station.
Energy generation being of prime importance, the zone 3 is centered to production with façade being the cladded with PV panels due to minimum requirements of daylight into the spaces.
Material Research
Cladding and insulation make up roughly one third of the envelope’s mass yet account for almost half and in some retrofit cases up to 60 % of its embodied-carbon tally, so these layers are the main levers for impact.
Fig. 4 – Material characterics of different type of brick façade cladding options saving/storing CO2 in production
Instead of defaulting to virgin mineral wool and kiln fired brick, we compared a range of low carbon substitutes already proven elsewhere (Fig. 4) : recycled-brick slips or K-Briq units made from 90 % demolition waste; thin precast panels that bolt on to the existing grid and can be lifted off intact for the next cycle; straw or mycelium insulation (Fig. 5) cores that store biogenic CO2 while still meeting Euro class-B fire safety; and shell crete tiles that lock seafood waste into durable lime.
In the final design, by deciding to use Isovlas (flax fibre) insulation instead of the traditional rockwool insulation, total CO2 saved: 22900 CO2 (23t); 23 tonnes i.e. same as taking 10 cars off the road for a year. Also, while choosing to reuse the brick panels for the cladding material, net Saving per brick was 20.93 CO2/m2; Total CO2 saved: 98015 CO2/m2 which is 100 tonnes approximately; that is annual space-heating emissions of about 75 well-insulated row houses in Utrecht.
Fig. 5 - Material characterics of different types of Bio based insulations
Brick soleil: Design Concept Details (Zone 1)
Presenting to you the final façade design for Zone 1, the Brick Soliel! (Fig. 6) Brick Soleil reuses bricks taken from the old facade, laying them in a conventional cavity wall that now packs in high performance insulation and new flashings for airtightness and rainwater weatherproof. Complete depth of the existing bricks is used on rebuilding the walls that were demolished, but the projecting sunshade fins are built instead from lightweight brick slips fixed to a steel grid. The grid sits on the edge of each floor slab and transfers its load back through Isokorb® thermal-break connectors (Fig.6), so the fins add almost no extra weight or heat bridge.
Fig. 6 – Typical Wall Section, Axonometric view and construction (sketch) details of the Brick Soleil
Fig. 7 – Plan, Elevation and construction (sketch) details of the fins of Brick Soleil
These deep, slip-clad fins cut glare, give extra privacy, (Fig.7) and frame small balcony recesses at the plinth and setbacks keeping the familiar Utrecht exposed brick language while meeting today’s thermal and structural needs with reclaimed material. This shapes both the street level experience and the residential outdoor spaces.
That makes it a practical retrofit kit for other aging apartment blocks: old bricks can be cleaned and sawn into slips, new insulation slides into the cavity, and the whole skin can be unbolted later for repair or reuse. In this way the design offers a forward-looking upgrade path cutting energy use now while keeping materials ready for the next renovation cycle.
Applying market requirement lessons to a low-rise residential block was a good starting point, because dwellings rely more on passive strategies than mechanically ventilated office towers and have higher chances of being affected sooner by climate shifts. We reviewed product catalogues and discussed the importance of tolerances during the stage of execution on site. The design now looks straightforward, but it sits on many small, practical deductions comparing product data, checking carbon figures, and revising joints each time the structure or services changed. Regular meetings with structural, climate, architecture, computational and urban colleagues were essential. The role as a façade designer was to keep the facade decisions realistic: confirming fixing lines, drainage paths, vapour barriers and material limits so that each discipline’s needs could be carried through to a workable solution.