113 results

  • Reduce, Reuse, Reclad featured image

    Reduce, Reuse, Reclad

    Kintsukuroi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with powdered precious metal, is a practice of celebrating the life and history of an…
  • Inside the Box

    The trend towards modular and unitized facades continues to grow in popularity due largely in part to the efficiencies gained in terms of cost and

  • Multi Layer Facades

    The history of high performance facades and glazing has been a tale of attempting to manage the conflicting requirements of, on one hand inviting

  • Saving Face

    In 1871, a fourth level Architecture course was offered in New York City that instructed on topics such as heating, ventilation and circulation of

  • Form as Energy

    All too often, high-performance building envelopes are considered in terms of new materials and technologies that push specific systems to improve

  • The First Triple Certified Facade

    Johnson Controls (JCI), a leading provider of intelligent building technology solicited the design of a 35,000sm headquarters for its Asia-Pacific

  • Exploring Heritage: Building on the Past

    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.

  • Localized Rigidification of PCM Envelopes

    This is an experimental and computational exploration of structural systems that transform between states of rigidity and flexibility. The goal is to

  • Adaptive Building Envelope

    Designing a multi-functional building envelope as an architectural façade, environmental interface and solar collector is a multi-objective

  • Algorithmic Patterns for Facade Design

    Recently, building envelopes have been exhibiting complex shapes and patterns, a trend supported by current digital technologies. Likewise, the

  • Next normal: Advanced composites for a changing industry

    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.

  • Prototyping with Ultra-Thin Glass

    This paper proposes system concepts and fabrication methods for the use of ultra-thin glass in facades. It documents the team's research on

  • Catalytic Conversion

    Nowadays, the power of images is seductive. Bold and complex facades often have an innovative appearance but superficial tectonic depth;

  • Shape Memory Alloy Activated Shading

    A novel shading device for facade application was developed by combining innovative geometry elements (twisting cylinders) with a smart use of

  • Facade Expansion Joint Systems featured image

    Facade Expansion Joint Systems

    As awareness around the seismic performance of buildings grows, it is becoming increasingly necessary to integrate seismic expansion joint cover…