Facades for High-Performance Workplaces

How has the role of the façade evolved in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing fight to combat the climate change crisis? As companies grapple with bringing their employees back to the office, does the building façade have a greater impact on the workplace experience? Could the definition of ‘high-performance façade’ expand to capture this impact on the interior workplace? This paper will provide a case study of 200 Park Avenue in San Jose, California that illustrates an expanded definition of façade performance.

Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, 200 Park Avenue is a speculatively designed 19-story building of nearly one million square feet. Coupled with its 100% electrically powered mechanical system, a high-performance envelope results in a building energy use index of 31 and a greenhouse gas reduction of 73% from the baseline. The building form is broken down by carving ‘solar canyons’ into the mass, introducing daylight deep into the floor plate. Exterior bridges are inserted within the canyons to extend the workplace outdoors and self-shade the building which allows for more transparent glass without adding significant direct solar gain.

The building envelope consists primarily of glass and opaque areas clad in embossed stainless steel spandrel panels. The window-wall ratio is tuned on each elevation based on the building’s orientation resulting in a more transparent north façade and more opaque south and west facades. Six different spandrel widths with low u-value are carefully located to balance solar control while maintaining desirable views. At the micro scale, insulation and thermal breaks are carefully coordinated around mullion extrusions to negotiate the transition from angled glass to adjacent orthogonal spandrel panels.

Beyond design thinking, an equal weight was placed on execution to ensure the highest possible envelope performance. Full-size visual and performance mockups were produced to ensure that the final enclosure design was in conformance with the both the aesthetic and technical design intent. Careful and periodic visual inspections were undertaken at both the points of manufacture and the construction sites, ultimately resulting in a new standard of office building in the region and enabling an elevated workplace experience.