There are facade engineering offices that deliver calculation reports. There are consulting firms that deliver slide decks. Our studio practises another trade. Shili & Partners is an independent atelier-laboratory dedicated to the world of building envelopes, anchored in Nyon, on the Lake Geneva basin, for the past ten years. Our practice is rooted in seventeen years in the envelope industry, including several years in pre-construction with a Tier-1 international contractor in glass envelope works. And it renews itself through a studio discipline: explore, document, capitalise on new processes mission after mission.
EN.002Founded by Kaïs Shili · independent atelier-laboratory form · deliberately human size. Direct access to the practitioners who carry the mission, a non-negotiable invariant.
Seventeen years in the envelope industry. Eight years with a Tier-1 contractor in glass envelope works, building international markets where everything was to be created, and designing, re-designing the facades of the most emblematic projects from concept to delivery. Both sides of the table: the project and the company. It is this dual anchoring that founds the studio's two poles, and that makes the promise verifiable. Our sister, Vonbuild, carries the agentic AI platform for construction, both entities operate in parallel, each within its own scope.
Our form is the independent atelier-laboratory: agile structure, tight team, extended partner network, applied research practice. We operate as a collective of peers (hence "Partners") rather than as a pyramidal firm. Missions mobilise the in-house core, complemented as the project requires by suitable external partners, Tier-1 European facade specialists, specialist engineering offices, cantonal or international standards consultants, contractual experts.
The size remains deliberately human. Direct access to the practitioners who carry the mission, never junior consultants between you and the decision, is an invariant. It is what makes native confidentiality, responsiveness in sensitive situations, and technical coherence on complex matters possible. It is also what obliges us to refuse missions we cannot serve at the required level, our calendar of ongoing missions is managed transparently.
The meeting between Tier-1 industrial execution in glass envelope works and the computational practice from architecture and spatial simulation. A rare bilingual that makes the trade-off audible from both sides.
FIG. 03Our DNA is born from the meeting between two professional trajectories that rarely cross in the envelope industry: Tier-1 industrial execution in glass envelope works and the computational practice from architecture and spatial simulation. Few profiles speak both languages fluently. It is this rare bilingual that allows our studio to translate architectural intent into buildable geometry, the owner's budget into industrial specification, and carbon ambition into materiality choices that are actually deliverable. The posture that follows is that of the trusted third party, no equity affiliation, no stake in any proprietary solution, no hidden rebate.
The first world is that of Tier-1 industrial execution: seventeen years in the envelope industry, progression from project management through to executive functions (Sales Director, Business Development Director, Pre-Construction Executive) with a Tier-1 international contractor in glass envelope works. Complex projects across Europe, the Middle East, North America. Native command of real industrial cost engineering, European procurement strategy, contractual frameworks (SIA 118, CCAG, FIDIC, VOB/B), management of projects in the hundreds of millions, and the concrete constraints of construction sites. The second world is that of computational practice and spatial simulation: architect by training, several years in native 3D simulation and parametric environments. Command of geometric rationalisation through bespoke algorithms, file-to-factory, digital twins. Shili & Partners was founded to be the bridge, with the technical credibility required to be recognised on both sides.
The building envelope is historically a battleground where four worlds clash, and destroy project value when they are not aligned. Architecture demands aesthetic innovation and pure lines. Engineering imposes the laws of physics, climate, structure and carbon. Technology offers spatial computation capabilities still under-used. Construction bears the constraints of tolerance, budget and supply chain. Our studio was founded to be the integrator of these four worlds. Concretely, our technical decisions are tested across the four dimensions before they are written. A structural limit is arbitrated against an architectural ambition before it is enforced. A material choice is weighed against its low-carbon sourcing, its tolerance and its logistical impact. A detail is designed with the factory's machine cut already in mind.
We work over time, with mastery. The tone of our studio is not that of marketed urgency, nor that of the Parisian consultant. It is closer to that of the private banker from Geneva, sober, precise, aligned with the client, and committed on a horizon longer than the cycle of a tender. Concretely, we scope missions on their real complexity, without advertised duration that would prove unsustainable at execution. The schedule of a mission is agreed at kick-off, on the basis of the project rather than a standard grid. This posture is not slowness. It is depth. A studio committing for five years on a mega-project cannot sell itself as a sprint provider. An executive entrusting us with a turnaround expects sustained support through to stabilisation, not a flash intervention.
Five core positions on the envelope industry, those that orient the studio's daily trade-offs. No slogans, operable theses.
The envelope is fragmented across four worlds that do not talk to each other, architecture, engineering, technology, construction. This fragmentation destroys value at every interface. Our specialty is not to optimise a silo, it is to hold the bridge between silos.
The value of a complex facade is won or lost before the construction site. It is in the upstream phase that the decisions are made which make the work buildable, or impossible within budget. The structuring choices play out on the first percentage points of project time, with consequences that cover its final years of execution.
An architect's signature is the most exposed asset of an envelope project. It dies through a thousand small cuts, value engineering, procurement trade-offs, execution compromises. Our role is to defend it technically, not to judge it aesthetically.
AI will not replace facade engineers. It will replace those who do not know how to use it. That is why we run in parallel a human studio (Shili & Partners) and an AI product (Vonbuild), the two illuminate each other, without one alienating the other's neutrality.
In an industry where every actor has a commercial interest in the recommended solution, the absence of interest IS the value. Our revenue does not depend on the chosen solution, only on the quality of the advice. This independence is not a declaration, it is a structure.
Our approach holds in one formula, we extend the architectural gesture all the way to the factory, working code-first, algorithm-driven, AI-augmented. The "laboratory" posture is not a marketing metaphor, the studio actively develops, mission after mission, new processes across the four dimensions of an envelope project.
FIG. 04New typologies, exploratory materialities, free-form geometries rationalised.
New envelope typologies, exploratory materialities, free-form geometries rationalised by algorithms, architectural integration of active components.
Electrochromic/PDLC glazing, structural glass at the limits, demountable assemblies.
Active glazing (electrochromic, PDLC), structural glass pushed to the limits of European transformation, demountable assemblies and material passports, hybrid systems combining several technologies.
Direct flows without re-entry, low-carbon materials, high-value-add prefabrication.
Direct file-to-factory flows without manual re-entry, low-carbon materials (low-footprint aluminium, low-carbon steel, certified engineered timber, optimised-binder UHPC, recycled glass, bio-sourced sourcing), high-value-add prefabricated components.
Industrialised installation methods, optimised urban logistics, reduced contingencies.
Industrialised installation methods on site, optimised urban logistics, reduction of interface contingencies with primary structure.
This applied research practice is inseparable from our commercial missions. Every project is the occasion to explore what European supply chains can produce today, and to document, method after method, what they will be able to produce tomorrow. Knowledge is not lost between two missions, it is capitalised in design notes, libraries of details, test protocols, process sheets.
The fruit is double. For the client project, an ability to propose solutions that other engineering offices do not imagine, or that they discard because they would not know how to make them stand up industrially. For the studio itself, methodological progression that maintains technical credibility in front of architectural signatures and institutional owners with high requirements.
This laboratory posture is carried by an explicit computational signature, code-first, algorithm-driven, AI-augmented, not as an added methodological layer, but as the way we design by default. Each of the four worlds of the envelope project is augmented simultaneously by three digital levers (digital, algorithm, AI), to transform both the upstream process and the delivered result. The full development of this twelve-cell grid is laid out in the manifesto computational engineering facade.
Our scope reads on three axes, project scale, geography, client typology. The building envelope is our world, anything that does not touch it is out of scope.
The studio's two poles, Envelope Engineering and Business Engineering, deploy on this scope, with articulations our trade sheets detail. In every circumstance, the common thread is the same, the building envelope is our world, anything that does not touch it is out of scope.
Two complementary brands founded by Kaïs Shili, Shili & Partners for envelope advisory and engineering, Vonbuild for the agentic AI platform. Distinct scopes, possible articulations.
Shili & Partners carries envelope advisory and engineering, it is the primary commercial entity for project and company missions. Vonbuild carries the agentic AI platform for construction, distinct entity, separate operation, independent communication. The two brands are founded by Kaïs Shili and operate in parallel, each within its own scope, with mission articulations when the client project mobilises both.
This architecture preserves the clarity of each entity's scope and the commercial readability for clients, who know at all times whom they are addressing and what they are buying.
From the Studio, deepen our disciplines and modes of engagement.
17 years Tier-1 glass envelope works + computational practice in spatial simulation, two worlds the industry keeps apart.
Trusted third party by DNA, documented technological neutrality, systemic envelope thinking.
Complete envelope engineering, design, engineering, economics, execution, claim, expertise.
Advisory and operational intervention for envelope companies, transformation, growth, transition.
Confidential conversation, NDA on request. Describe the context of your project or your company.