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Façade & Cladding

The building's face - brick, render, rainscreen and curtain walling, and the fire details behind them.

Last updated 2026-08-25

Typical duration

3–8 weeks for low-rise elevations; 4–12 months for tower façades running floor by floor.

What is Façade & Cladding?

The façade is where structure meets weather, thermal performance meets architecture, and - since Grenfell - where fire engineering meets criminal liability. UK regulation now requires the external walls of residential buildings over 18 m to be built from materials of limited combustibility: the combustible aluminium composite (ACM) panels with polyethylene cores that fuelled that fire are banned, and A2 or A1-rated cores are the specification. Whether it is a brick outer leaf on a house, a render system on a block, a rainscreen on a mid-rise or unitised curtain walling on a tower, the same principles hold: support the skin, drain the water, stop the fire, allow the movement.

Behind every cladding panel or brick leaf there is a secondary support system of brackets and rails, a build-up of insulation and membranes, and a series of fire barriers and cavity closers that nobody will ever see again after the panels close. That hidden layer is where façade quality lives. The visible face is only as good as the rails, the fixings and the barriers holding it.

Compare the methods at a glance

When and why is Façade & Cladding used?

Façade works follow the frame and the weathertight line, and run floor by floor behind scaffold or mast climbers on low- and mid-rise, or from the slab edge with cranes on towers. The process matters because the façade is the building's energy performance, its weather defence and its fire strategy in a single assembly - and post-Grenfell regulation (Approved Document B and the Building Safety Act 2022 regime for higher-risk buildings) makes the golden thread of design, materials and installation records a legal requirement, not good practice. In the UAE the same logic is enforced differently: façades require Dubai Civil Defence approval under the UAE Fire and Life Safety Code of Practice (2018 edition), strengthened after a series of tower façade fires - fire-tested and listed systems, flame-spread test evidence and, on applicable projects, third-party House of Expertise review. The façade also carries the building's Al Sa'fat or Estidama energy performance: U-values, solar gain and thermal bridging are scored at the skin.

Walkthrough storyboard

The process in pictures, step by step - Step 1 of 7 - slide through the snapshots.

STEP 1

Survey the structure and set the support grid

Survey the slab edges or the substrate for line, level and plumb - the façade must absorb the frame's as-built tolerances through its brackets, and you need to…

Types of Façade & Cladding

Explore each method in depth - benefits, limitations, plant and quality control on its own page.

Brickwork outer leaf

The traditional drained-cavity wall: brickwork tied back to the structure, standing on lintels or support angles at each floor on framed buildings. Durable, repairable and familiar - but slow, and dependent on cavity trays, weeps and ties being right at every floor.

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Render and EWI systems

Thin-coat renders on carrier board or external wall insulation (EWI, also called ETICS) fixed to masonry or frame, finished with silicone or acrylic render. Excellent thermal upgrade and a clean modern face - with movement joints, base tracks, bead details and fire-rated fixings deciding whether it stays on and stays dry. Render over blockwork is the everyday UAE villa finish, with stone or porcelain cladding on higher-end work.

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Rainscreen cladding

Panels - terracotta, fibre cement, metal, stone - on a rail-and-bracket support system with a drained and ventilated cavity behind, over insulation fixed to the substrate. The cavity equalises pressure and drains driven rain; fire barriers close the cavity at compartment lines. Aluminium composite panels must have fire-rated cores - polyethylene cores are banned on taller UK residential buildings and rejected in UAE Civil Defence approvals. Materials carry reaction-to-fire classifications that must match the building's requirements.

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Curtain walling: unitised and stick

Stick systems assemble mullions and transoms on site and glaze them piece by piece - flexible, slower, cheaper to ship. Unitised panels are glazed in the factory and craned onto slab-edge brackets in minutes per panel - the tower standard in the UK and the overwhelming norm on UAE towers, with factory quality and site tolerance absorbed by the brackets. Systems are tested for air, water and wind performance to CWCT standards, and inter-storey movement and stack joints are engineered, not improvised.

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Cladding remediation

Investigating, stripping and replacing an existing facade on an occupied building - the works the building safety regime created.

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Best suited for

The weatherproof envelope on everything from houses to towers
Rainscreen and curtain walling where speed and performance justify the cost
Brick, block and render elevations on housing and villas
UAE facades engineered for heat, dust, driving sand and thermal movement
Fire-remediation and recladding schemes on existing blocks