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.
Are you resilient? Do you bend to the winds of change or do you resist? Do you bounce back from adversity or is your recovery long, slow, and incomplete? Do you readily adopt lifestyle changes in response to personal health, economic, or environmental challenges, or is your response one of denial?
The façade system is a potent potential lever for bringing transformative change to buildings and urban habitat in the pursuit of carbon reduction and net zero carbon goals. Nothing in architecture combines attributes of appearance and performance as does the building façade.
Authors and educators Eugenia Gasparri, Arianna Brambilla, Gabriele Lobaccaro, Francesco Goia, Annalisa Andaloro, and Alberto Sangiorgio address the major challenges and opportunities ahead for the construction (and façade) sector, with a focus on product and process innovations.
Research is an essential part of innovation. Our industry has seen an increased interest in research over the last fifteen years, driven by the multifaceted challenges facing our profession—environmental concerns, increasing complexity in building design and construction, necessity to improve...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In this first 2022 issue of SKINS, we pause to look back on 2021 through our most-read stories of the year, which we’ve recycled here in case you missed them. The very first thing we see is the inaugural Vitruvian Honors & Awards (VH&A) program conducted virtually. It was a spectacular event!
This newsletter is different from what you usually expect from SKINS. We are talking about human connection, communication, language, and broadening our understanding of how we move through the world and evolve with the new information we receive. How do these aspects relate to the AECO Industry?
The first Vitruvian Honors & Awards program took place in 2021. The virtual program highlights the finalists in each project category.
To avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis, we urgently need to reduce carbon emissions now. But that's not enough! This original article for SKINS by Drew Shula is a veritable manifesto on the why and how of climate action for all of us.
The advantages and challenges for FRP in architectural applications as discussed in our 2015 paper are still very much true today. As the advantages of FRP are discussed comprehensively elsewhere in this issue of SKINS, I will focus my comments on FRP fire behavior.
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.
In architecture, the façade is often the defining aspect of a building’s appearance, establishing the building’s public persona. From an engineering perspective, the façade is an assembly of building components with a critical impact on a range of performative metrics.
Facades Month and the World Congress, long delayed and virtually conducted, is now in the rear-view mirror with some of us still recovering from the experience. It was an intensive undertaking. And I tell you this, my friends: it was stupendous!
The 2022 World Congress was special in many ways, but first on everyone’s list was the opportunity to be together on October 12 and 13 in Los Angeles. Our previous World Congress in 2020 was held online due to the global pandemic.
It’s that time of year as the holidays approach and heating bills climb. Next to moisture control, thermal behavior has occupied the top spot in performance considerations of the facade system for many years now. So how are we doing? Not so hot!