51 results

  • 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…

  • City Development and Cladding Design featured image

    City Development and Cladding Design

    High-rise buildings in growing cities could become more vulnerable to variations in wind flow due to the continuous changes in urban topology. The ae…

  • Comparison of Historical Weathered Annealed Glass Failure Data to ASTM E1300

    Historical published weathered annealed failure data consisting of 13 samples were collected and glass failure prediction model surface flaw paramete…

  • Environmental Facade Perspective featured image

    Environmental Facade Perspective

    Designing a sustainable rainscreen wall assembly has become an essential part of most new construction projects. Industry principles and energy codes…

  • Facade Resilience Evaluation Framework

    Resiliency is the capacity of a building (or building component in the case of the facade) to support building functionalities during extreme events …

  • Parametric Louver System

    The Parametric Louver System is a customized tool that expedites several design iterations while embedding multiple design parameters. The ambition o…

  • Novel Thermal Break Solution featured image

    Novel Thermal Break Solution

    Thermal-break-blanket technology is a novel and high-performance thermal break solution for aluminum curtain walls. The thermal-break-blanket is inst…

  • Inside the Box featured image

    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 ti…

  • Form Follows Well-Being featured image

    Form Follows Well-Being

    Recent planning recognizes a growing demand for buildings that provide higher levels of occupant well-being. Often, well-being in buildings is reduce…

  • The Craft of Building Enclosures featured image

    The Craft of Building Enclosures

    This paper will provide case studies of two high-performance building envelopes in the San Francisco Bay Area where the fabrication of bespoke façade…

  • Digital Enablement for Manufacturing featured image

    Digital Enablement for Manufacturing

    Architectural design freedom achieved on high-end projects currently costs over $1,000/sq. Ft. Building materials have long been relegated to plane s…

  • Stainless Steel 101 featured image

    Stainless Steel 101

    This paper presents a summary of the industry advances beyond T304 and T316 austenitic stainless steels. The greater availability of precipitation ha…

  • Transformation as Movement featured image

    Transformation as Movement

    In 1888 the art historian Heinrich Wölfflin proposed the notion that the primary characteristic of baroque architecture is the illusion of movement. …

  • Retrofit Options for Historic Facades featured image

    Retrofit Options for Historic Facades

    Building design criteria requires that government buildings be designed for a variety of extreme loads including blast, hurricane, and impact conditi…

  • Thinking About Facades featured image

    Thinking About Facades

    There have been three decades of liberating developments in the application of descriptive geometry and freeform design methods, as well as the abili…

  • High-Performance Building Facades

    For architects, designers, engineers, manufacturers, consultants, and owners' representatives interested in methods for designing high-performance facades.