Sweat Equity: Facade System Considerations for Hot and Humid Climates

It’s about the fundamentals. We learn early on, as students and practitioners, the critical importance of climate in building and facade system design. Yet most of our lessons focus on the considerations of cold climates: thermal and condensation behavior, solar heat gain control, with accompanying strategies to optimize performance. Tropical climates present a quite different context for buildings and their skins, one that changes just about everything. This session drills down to look at the building science of facade system performance in hot and humid conditions. You may be surprised at the challenges, as well as the strategies for their resolution.