116 results

  • High Performance: Who Benefits?

    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.

  • HydroSKIN featured image

    HydroSKIN

    Building envelopes cover a considerable part of the urban exterior surfaces, and to therefore have a significant leverage effect on the climate…
  • Rethinking Building Skins featured image

    Rethinking Building Skins

    Building skins play a pivotal role in architecture. Other than the aesthetical and architectural aspects, facades are key to the climate performance,…
  • Active and Energy Autonomous Window featured image

    Active and Energy Autonomous Window

    Reducing GHG emissions related to energy use in buildings is a prominent obligation given their impact in terms of climate change. In this light,…
  • Performance of Compact, Closed Cavity, Double-skin Curtain Wall featured image

    Performance of Compact, Closed Cavity, Double-skin Curtain Wall

    A proposed design for a compact, closed cavity, double-skin curtain wall system in the Marine climate of the West Coast raises questions of potential…
  • Sustainable Façades

    Transposing innovation from government funded research to commercially viable solutions becomes ever more important when combined with the urgent

  • 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…
  • Shadow Box Design featured image

    Shadow Box Design

    Shadow boxes are commonly used in curtain wall construction, but can be problematic if not designed and detailed correctly and appropriately for the…
  • The Myth of Simplicity

    There were good why reasons early US Modernism first evolved in California– wide open sites with no constraints (physical or zoning), and effectively

  • Attention to Overheating in Curtainwall Buildings

    Several years ago, Technoform and the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) researched the thermal performance of different aluminum

  • Lightning Protection as Building Envelope featured image

    Lightning Protection as Building Envelope

    A building’s envelope mitigates the effects of meteorological phenomena – including lightning – upon the structure and its occupants and contents.…
  • Façade Resilience Evaluation Framework

    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.

  • Façade Systems and Embodied Carbon

    Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a methodology used to quantify the impact of building construction supply chains on the environment in terms of