131 results

  • Surfing Uncertainty

    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.

  • Embodied Carbon

    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.

  • Fenestration Challenges

    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.

  • Why SKINS?

    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.

  • Remembering Peter Rice

    What does an engineer do? An engineer imagines. What are your sources of inspiration? Mic Patterson remembers Peter Rice and discusses his enduring legacy.

  • Reconfigurable Terracotta Facades

    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.

  • Reflections on Views

    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.

  • 2021 Construction Forecast

    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.

  • Net Zero Tower

    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.

  • building HEALTHY building(s)

    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.

  • Curb Your Carbon, Knave!

    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.

  • Kinetic Solar Envelope Design

    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.

  • Toward Net Zero Enclosures

    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.

  • 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.

  • 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.