Efficiency-Driven Facade Optimization

As overall project schedules continue to contract and rising costs impact our design decisions, the importance of the design-assist phase for facades has never been higher. Examining two recent Enclos projects, a government building on the East Coast and an infrastructure building on the West Coast, we look at managing complexity across multiple areas of facade design, including material selection, geometry rationalization, system optimization, and the design-assist process itself.

The first case study is a government project with a unique facade geometry and material typology, including copper rainscreen panels that underwent a rigorous design-assist phase to achieve project goals. By optimizing the facade geometry, simplifying the unit design, and reducing the overall number of unique units, Enclos was able to help the architect achieve an elegant simplicity that maintained their design intent while reducing the complexity and costs of the facade.

The second case study is an infrastructure project with a feature facade where elegance and daylighting concerns were the primary architectural drivers. The original design used a heavy, curved and laminated glass makeup intended to be field set and hung from the roof on architecturally exposed structural steel (AESS) vertical members. The complexity of the material, installation sequence, and the original structural design received consideration during the design-assist phase, leading to numerous alternative concept explorations with attendant costing models. Ultimately the team arrived at a final solution where the glass could be shop installed into a small curtainwall frame hung from AESS steel trusses, and the glass was used structurally to reduce the overall size of the framing system. In addition to materials and structural design, multiple studies were modeled and reviewed to arrive at a unique daylighting solution that utilized an unusual frit pattern and a large curved, ribbed aluminum fin made from a single 16" diameter extrusion. Balancing this project's complexity at the micro and macro scales was vital to engineering an optimal system.

Finally, we examine design-assist processes and share insights Enclos has garnered over years of doing DA work on some of the most celebrated architectural projects in the country. We discuss tools and methods for refining aesthetics, costing models, geometry rationalization, workflow, and risk management.