Specifying Electrochromic Glass
Opportunities and Challenges – An Architect’s Perspective
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Overview
Abstract
Electrochromic (EC) glass is a seemingly magical solution to a building’s sun shading problems. A technology that was originally developed about sixty years ago is simple and effective; a low-volt current runs through a thin film that is placed inside an insulated glazing unit, resulting in glazing that can reduce visible light transmission to a fraction of one percent. On the upside, EC glass is highly configurable with multiple different tint states. It eliminates the need for sunshades. It offers privacy and security, its software anticipates the need for shading by both analyzing data and using a real-time sensor. On the downside, the color of the tinted glass tends to be very blue, panel sizes are limited, there is added cost in the EC glass material, and electrical controls are spatially cumbersome to accommodate. There are only a handful of manufacturers, and only one of those companies has existed for more than ten years.
This paper investigates many of the opportunities and limitations of specifying electrochromic glass on large-scale projects, with a focus on very large installations of over 75,000 sf of electrochromic glass (project size of approximately 250,000 sf). Research presented here offers insights into the process of investigating, specifying and implementing the product today.
Authors
Belinda Valenti, AIA, LEED AP BD+C
Associate
STUDIOS Architecture
bvalenti@studios.com
Justin Glover, AIA, LEED AP BD+C
Associate Principal
STUDIOS Architecture
jglover@studios.com
Introduction
Electrochromic glazing can dynamically and plurally address some of the oldest and most central tenets of architectural design. In this paper we will describe how electrochromic (EC) glazing can be
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Research
Relevance
There are a specific set of opportunities afforded through the specification of EC glass that an architect can add to their design tool chest. In this section we will discuss
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Conclusions and Future Work
There are significant value propositions made through the use of EC glass and we hope that the research and analysis discussed here can help other design teams benefit from our
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Acknowledgements
acknowledgments
STUDIOS Architecture, Holland Basham Architects, Morrissey Engineering, Front Inc., representatives at View, Inc., SageGlass, and Halio Glass
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REFERENCES
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