Video

How glass, technology, and green became marketing in architecture

In the late 2000s and early 2010s, an aesthetic moved from screens to buildings. It was the era of interfaces full of glass effects, shine, soft shadows, and clean nature imagery, the same look that defined systems like Windows Vista and Windows 7, known as Frutiger Aero.

Architecture began to copy this logic. Glass façades, smooth surfaces, curved forms, and lots of greenery started to signal modernity, technology, and “sustainability”. Buildings began to look like renderings, atriums turned into showrooms, and entire gardens became part of the project’s image.

The problem is that, in many cases, this stayed at the level of appearances. Too much glass increases the need for air conditioning, and too much decorative greenery consumes water and energy. “Organic” forms don’t always improve building performance. Technology is then used to fix problems that could have been avoided in the basic design, and as a result, sustainability becomes a visual argument rather than a technical outcome.

This creates an architecture that looks efficient, but often isn’t. An architecture that sells the future, yet keeps the same model of energy, material, and resource consumption.

Interested in this topic?

Watch the full video to see how Frutiger Aero moved from screens into architecture and became an environmental marketing aesthetic.

Disclaimer: The video is in Brazilian Portuguese, but simultaneous translation and subtitles are available in multiple languages.

UGREEN

Master sustainability with technical rigor

Today, sustainability intersects with design, products, costs, and technical decision-making.

Even professionals who don’t work directly with sustainability often end up dealing with it in many situations.

That’s why UGREEN Pass is an education platform for professionals who want to understand this topic in a practical, applicable way.

You get access to content that ranges from beginner to advanced levels.

Want to learn more about UGREEN Pass? Visit the website and find out.

News

Circular construction and adaptive reuse become major trends in construction in 2026

The global construction industry is now entering a phase of structural transition, in which the model based on demolition and building from scratch is losing ground to circular construction and adaptive reuse. This direction, shaping the sector in 2026, highlights the adaptation of existing buildings as the central strategy to reduce costs, timelines, and emissions.

The main driver behind this shift is the volume of waste and the climate impact of materials. Annual construction waste already reaches the billions of tons worldwide. In mature markets, more than 90% of this volume comes from demolitions. At the same time, the embodied carbon linked to the production of cement, steel, aluminum, and glass represents a significant share of global emissions.

Even in new, high-performance buildings, this embodied carbon already accounts for between 20% and 50% of total life-cycle impact.

As a result, life-cycle carbon accounting has moved from being a technical exception to guiding design and investment decisions. Whole-building Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools are now used to compare construction systems and set emissions limits from the earliest design stages. Governments and financiers have begun to require these metrics as a basis for permits, contracts, and financing.

In this context, adaptive reuse has already become a common practice in the international real estate market. Converting obsolete buildings into housing, logistics facilities, and laboratories reduces time to operation, avoids demolition, and preserves most of the carbon already invested in the structure. Major urban centers are leading this movement, driven by a surplus of outdated assets and by climate targets.

For new projects, Design for Disassembly and modular construction are gaining ground. Buildings are increasingly conceived with reversible connections, modular systems, and layered components, making maintenance, upgrades, and material reuse easier. Offsite industrialized construction reduces waste at the source and can cut schedules by up to half, according to industry data.

This transition is being reinforced by market rules and public procurement. Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) have become a requirement in contracts, tenders, and international certification systems such as LEED v5. At the time, national circular economy plans and new carbon measurement standards are aligning supply chains with decarbonization goals and international trade requirements.