IATA Executive Office

The Challenge

IATA, the International Air Transport Association, represents the world's airlines. Its executive headquarters are located next to the Geneva airport in Switzerland.

The building, built in 1989, was affected by major water leakage through the roof.  In addition, users of the building suffered from summer heat and an excess of light from the skylight.

The skylight is in the centre of the building, overlooking an open-plan style working area and provides natural light to five floors. It is formed of two layers to reduce noise from the nearby Geneva airport runways.

BIFF SA, the façade engineering company selected to address the issue, identified a number of water ingress points from the skylight and in addition to  skylight's insulated glazing showing signs of deterioration and condensation. They also found out that the skylight’s solar protection was inadequate: a solar protection film installed several years ago suffered damage over the years due to UV light and external dust and the mechanical blind installed underneath the skylight was no longer functional.

The Solution

To solve all of these problems, BIFF carried out thermal studies and proposed 3 alternatives to IATA:

•  Traditional renovation with new insulated solar control glazing and interior blinds
•  Traditional renovation with new IGU and integrated blinds
•  Renovation with SageGlass Climatop Classic.

Simulations and comparisons demonstrated that SageGlass was the best solution: long lifespan, no maintenance, high energy performance, etc.

The Benefits

Implementing SageGlass triple glazing for solar protection has drastically increased IATA employees’ level of comfort and reduced the need for air conditioning by 60%. The building’s maintenance team can control the building’s temperature with more flexibility and their tasks have been relieved from heavy maintenance.