There is a growing awareness and interest in understanding the carbon footprint of material manufacturing, opening doors to new opportunities in facade design and manufacturing innovation. There are steps and decisions we can make today to help fight climate change.
The focus of this issue of SKINS is on embodied carbon -- the carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions associated with materials and construction processes throughout the whole lifecycle of a building or infrastructure.
We at Zaha Hadid Architects Computation and Design group (ZHACODE) explore the relevance of this resource-effective, experience-rich design and construction paradigm to both large institutional projects with complex geometry and mass-customisation, repeated unit projects with assembly complexities.
When we say composites, the reference is Fiber-Reinforced-Polymer composites, FRP. The most common glues or the polymer matrix of FRP is polyester or epoxy-based resins with variations that boggle the mind.
This issue of SKINS will attempt to introduce you to composite materials in an accurate, useful and fairly in-depth way. But it’s only an introduction; it’s a start but by no means a rigorous exploration of the full potential of this remarkable material technology.
Facades play a relevant role in the search for a more sustainable approach to modern architecture. The amount of embodied and operational energy can
In recent decades the use of unitized glazing systems has become increasingly common especially for high-rise construction. The opaque panels in
Concerns over time-dependent argon permeation through the perimeter edge seals of insulating glass units (IGUs) led the authors to utilize two