Contextual Envelopes
Aesthetic and technical capabilities of facade design have become seemingly endless as building technologies progress. While the capacity to address …
60 results
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Nested Density
Projecting imagery onto building facades is not only becoming a marketing necessity for successful urban spectacles but is also altering social urban…
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Anisotropy and Haze Measurement with Online Scanners
Architects and facade planners require that anisotropies or haze, optical phenomena disturbing the clear appearance of a glass, have to be avoided co…
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Terra Cotta Skins
This paper will address the potential of ornamental architectural terracotta surfaces to mitigate the effects of climate fluctuations that will creat…
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Facade Games
This paper provides an overview of a course focusing on the façade as taught to architecture students over a twenty-year period. The need for this s…
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Put Your Sweater On!
During the particularly cold first months of 1977 President Jimmy Carter, in what some call “The Sweater Speech,” famously noted how much energy coul…
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Hydrophobic Stainless Steel Surfaces
There is no doubting the longevity of stainless steel building facades. The Chrysler Building and numerous buildings that followed have stood the tes…
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Vertical Louvered Solar Control
Exterior shading devices, when typically used, are horizontal planes that are most effective at the south face of buildings in the northern hemispher…
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Autonomous or Appropriate
This paper examines two profoundly different design approaches: one, herein called ‘autonomous’, where the building’s design is governed by internal …
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The Butterfly
Providing a unique and integral cladding/envelope solution suited for high-rise buildings has been an inherent challenge for this building typology s…
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Air Spaces Changed Everything
This abstract proposes that architectural facade design over the last 60 years has convulsed in light of two disruptions: air spaces which create ven…
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Shaping Skin
The conventional modern facade is essentially flat, which creates the tendency toward visual monotony and problems for modulating daylight—both on th…
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Rethinking Building Skins
Building skins play a pivotal role in architecture. Other than the aesthetical and architectural aspects, facades are key to the climate performance,…
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Design Digital Recipes
Precision in digital workflow is necessary to deliver facade projects where there is a high design aesthetic or structural performance requirement. T…
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DC Water Headquarters Case Study
Facades must be responsive to a myriad of qualities and influences ranging from urban impact and aesthetic character to numerous performance requirem…
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Green Wall Rainscreen
Green Wall applications are growing in popularity around the world. Often thought of as a decorative element they provide much more than aesthetic ap…
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The Thermal Blanket Concept
This paper tells the story of a Double Skin Facade (DSF), where high performance and multi-disciplinary collaboration saves a library concept of open…
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Design Considerations and the Complex Facade
The design of complex, high-performance facades involves balancing attention towards principles of material selection, thermal and moisture protectio…
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Modeling Megapanels
Large format, steel-stud framed “megapanel” facades with rainscreen cladding create uniquely complicated requirements for digital documentation and 3…
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Facade Expansion Joint Systems
As awareness around the seismic performance of buildings grows, it is becoming increasingly necessary to integrate seismic expansion joint cover syst…