We are all swimming in the wake of Covid-19. There are signs that things are slowly beginning to open up, although serious concerns remain among health professionals that governments, under increasing pressure to restart the economy, may be acting prematurely.
Welcome to this edition of the SKINS newsletter, which is all about carbon! As guest editor this month, I am representing FTI’s embodied carbon (EC) working group. This issue highlights several important topics relative to embodied and the trade-offs with operational carbon.
The May SKINS newsletter focuses on fenestration, that is – windows, curtainwall, storefront, glazed doors and skylights. There are very few structures that are built without these elements, not just because they are so crucial for occupant health and well-being.
Here’s the thing about the building SKIN: It is utterly unique in the built environment in separating the interior and exterior environments, balancing attributes of both appearance and performance in the process. It’s the gateway to resilience and sustainability goals in urban habitats.
What does an engineer do? An engineer imagines. What are your sources of inspiration? Mic Patterson remembers Peter Rice and discusses his enduring legacy.
The first Vitruvian Honors & Awards program took place in 2021. The virtual program highlights the finalists in each project category.
This study, completed by an interdisciplinary team from the University of Buffalo and Alfred University explores a thermal mass application using terracotta blocks that can be reconfigured for different seasons.
Authors and educators Eugenia Gasparri, Arianna Brambilla, Gabriele Lobaccaro, Francesco Goia, Annalisa Andaloro, and Alberto Sangiorgio address the major challenges and opportunities ahead for the construction (and façade) sector, with a focus on product and process innovations.
Lisa Heschong, a keynote speaker at the Facade Tectonics Institute’s World Congress in October, is a strong proponent for the importance of daylighting and views in all types of buildings, including this excerpt from her recent book, Visual Design in Architecture: Daylight, Vision, and View.
2020 has been an unusual year, to say the least, presenting a challenge to those entities keen on clarifying what the near future may hold and how it may impact industry performance. Following is a sampling of what some of these entities are saying, with links to more information.
John Neary describes a collaborative Advanced design Studio at City Tech that involved Permasteelisa, Skanska and Onyx Solar, with links to the published student works.
Healthy buildings were explored in a recent conference in Germany. Hosted by Schuco International, participants from 18 universities, representatives from research institutes, and political and business leaders shared a spirited 2-day exchange of ideas.
A collection of available public assets to assist in your resilient and sustainable building design and delivery.
A question for architects and building industry: Can our cities be part of the solution to the challenges facing humanity, or are they intrinsically and inevitably a big part of the problem? To move beyond the latter demands nothing less than a fundamental shift in the way we think about buildings.
Authors Christina Koukelli, Arup, Alejandro Prieto, Diego Portales University, and Serdar Asut, TU Delft, address the potentials of Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs) for the design of autoreactive facade systems without using additional energy.
Gensler architects Jessica Santonastaso and Alan Estabrook survey existing research on embodied carbon in exterior wall assemblies and the availability of product declarations for relevant materials.
This paper discusses façade resilience and presents a novel qualitative evaluation framework that assesses potential risks associated with façade design and suggests way of reducing such design risk in a climate change scenario. Authors Fabio Favoino, Adèle Chalumeau, and Audrey Aquaronne.
I recently started studying Sustainable Environmental Systems at Pratt Institute. One of my classes focused on climate change and its social effects across the world. I started to connect the dots backward and question the impact of our work in facades and fenestration on our local communities.