Active transparent facades constitute a building envelope component that is becoming more and more common in high-rise office buildings. Many designers have opted for a ventilated facade, claiming that this technology is sustainable, reduces energy consumption and enhances indoor comfort conditions, but these claims have often proved to be wrong. From the thermofluid-dynamic analysis point of view, few design procedures or sufficiently detailed, reliable and easy to use simulation software are available for ventilated facades. A numerical model that has been developed to simulate the thermal behaviour of mechanically ventilated active transparent facades is presented in this paper. The model, developed in the Simulink/Matlab (R) environment, simulates the facade in both steady-state and transient conditions and provides the temperature of the different layers of the facade structure and the corresponding heat fluxes as output data. The model has been validated by comparing the simulation results with experimental data obtained in the laboratory. A test has also been performed on a real facade under actual operating conditions. The model performance has resulted to be quite promising. The accuracy of the prediction of the temperature is good, while the simulations of the heat fluxes are slightly less reliable for some operative conditions. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.