Compliance vs Performance: Navigating Regulatory and Performance Challenges in Fenestration

Description

This session tackles one of the biggest challenges in modern fenestration design: how to meet multiple — and sometimes conflicting — Building Regulations without compromising real-world performance or design intent.

Aimed at architects, specifiers, and design professionals, particularly those working across RIBA Stages 2 to 4, this CPD takes a practical, not theoretical, look at the realities of getting windows and doors to perform across a wide range of regulatory demands.

The session explores how fenestration interacts with key Approved Documents, and how system choice and design strategies can support:

• Thermal performance
• Fire safety
• Secure design
• Inclusive access
• Aesthetic intent and design flexibility

— even when the regulations seem to pull in different directions.

Using clear examples, we’ll look at how to balance compliance requirements with day-to-day design priorities, helping attendees understand where conflicts arise and how to make informed specification decisions that achieve both regulatory compliance and good performance in use.