257 results

  • Façade Systems and Embodied Carbon featured image

    Façade Systems and Embodied Carbon

    Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a methodology used to quantify the impact of building construction supply chains on the environment in terms of measur…

  • A Burning Question Revisited featured image

    A Burning Question Revisited

    In recent decades the use of unitized glazing systems has become increasingly common especially for high-rise construction. The opaque panels in unit…

  • Facade Maintenance Access

    Facades are an architectural feature and an integral part of the building enclosure. To ensure that the facades continue their function, they must be…

  • Design Considerations featured image

    Design Considerations

    Window glass design using ASTM E 1300 entails determining glass thickness(es) and types so that the window glass construction load resistance magnitu…

  • The Evolution of AEC Professional Silos featured image

    The Evolution of AEC Professional Silos

    Healthcare projects in northern California require specialized knowledge to navigate regulation, technological advancements, and project execution du…

  • Pioneering the Structural Terracotta Mullion Façade featured image

    Pioneering the Structural Terracotta Mullion Façade

    Architects today must explore alternative enclosure materials to meet evolving energy codes and embodied carbon regulations. Terra cotta has been mos…

  • 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…

  • Addressing Embodied Carbon featured image

    Addressing Embodied Carbon

    Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector is critical to limiting global temperature rise to less than 1.5⁰C. Construction and build…

  • Lightning Protection as Building Envelope

    A building’s envelope mitigates the effects of meteorological phenomena – including lightning – upon the structure and its occupants and contents. Th…

  • Terracotta 1912 to 2018

    Center Three is a 100-year-old, one million square-foot building in Long Island City, New York that was constructed over the course of one year. It w…

  • Invert Auto-Shading featured image

    Invert Auto-Shading

    Allowing sufficient amount of natural light while avoiding excessive sunlight penetration is often hard to achieve with static facade systems due to …

  • The Glass Failure Prediction Model featured image

    The Glass Failure Prediction Model

    ASTM E 1300 Standard Practice for Determining Load Resistance (LR) of Glass in Buildings defines the load resistance of a glass construction as being…

  • Autonomous or Appropriate

    This paper examines two profoundly different design approaches: one, herein called ‘autonomous’, where the building’s design is governed by internal …

  • Glazing Design By ASTM E 1300 featured image

    Glazing Design By ASTM E 1300

    ASTM E 1300 “Standard Practice for Determining Load Resistance of Glass in Buildings” defines the load resistance of a glass construction as being th…

  • Challenges of Tall Iconic Building Retrofit featured image

    Challenges of Tall Iconic Building Retrofit

    Change happens, for better or for worse, to all living and physical matter. In order to thrive and achieve longevity, we constantly need to adapt to …

  • Spandrel Glass Design featured image

    Spandrel Glass Design

    Currently, most spandrel glass in commercial curtain walls comprises insulating glass fabricated using an interior heat strengthened glass lite that …

  • Transitions Between Diverse Envelope Systems featured image

    Transitions Between Diverse Envelope Systems

    The Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California features an extremely diverse set of facade systems within one…

  • Architectural Ceramic Assemblies featured image

    Architectural Ceramic Assemblies

    This paper documents a six year academia/industry collaboration between researchers at the Department of Architecture, University at Buffalo (SUNY) a…

  • Building Scale Mock-up

    Until recently, Google has occupied buildings that were designed for others and modified the interiors to suit its needs. Many of the improvements we…