34 results

  • Fire Safety and Code Challenges for Mass Timber in Curtain Wall Systems featured image

    Fire Safety and Code Challenges for Mass Timber in Curtain Wall Systems

    With the desire for more sustainable construction and reduced embodied energy, mass timber is being explored for building structures. For medium and…
  • Wherefor Aluminum: Materiality of Curtain Wall Systems

    Historically, the material advantages of aluminum have resulted in its widespread application as curtain wall framing. But amidst the 21st century push for increased energy performance, aluminum is also characterized by problematic thermal properties and a high-embodied energy profile.

  • PowerSkin Conference 2022

    The PowerSkin Conference aims to address the role of building skins to accomplish a carbon neutral building stock.

  • 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.

  • Reduce, Reuse, Reclad

    Kintsukuroi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with powdered precious metal, is a practice of celebrating the life and history of an

  • Optimized Adaptive Re-Use featured image

    Optimized Adaptive Re-Use

    Contemporary building practice represents a disconnect between traditional manufacturing techniques, that favor straight runs and orthogonal…
  • Hybrid Timber

    This case study provides an overview of building hybrid curtain wall system and future opportunities for the use of timber. It will also review the

  • PowerSKIN Conference

    The next PowerSKIN Conference will be held virtually in Munich on April 9th. The focus of the 2021 conference deals with the question of whether simplicity and robustness are in contradiction to good performance or whether they even complement each other: Simplicity vs. Performance?

  • Orbit Tower

    While most of high-rise buildings feature a core surrounded by a spatial frame defining the volume, one could envision a column-free plan where the

  • Structural Skin

    Many prominent, recent buildings feature forms suggesting structural surface while their enclosures are really non-load-bearing curtain wall. At the

  • Shaping Skin featured image

    Shaping Skin

    The conventional modern facade is essentially flat, which creates the tendency toward visual monotony and problems for modulating daylight—both on…
  • Mapping Advanced Facades

    This paper describes the development of an interactive map that highlights case studies of advanced facade design strategies and technologies from…
  • Contextualizing Glass and Carbon Impacts

    Climate change goals will require significant improvements in the way buildings are constructed and operated. Building reuse can combat climate

  • Prefab Facades – from Prototype to Product?

    Building envelopes are not only an immediately visible part of the building, they have also become a major factor both for cost and performance of

  • Embodied Carbon Of Timber Unitized Curtain Wall

    The building envelope is at the intersection of embodied and operational emissions. Curtain wall specifically could play an important role in

  • Facade Embodied Carbon Reduction Strategies

    Facades are increasingly being recognized as a major contributor to whole-building embodied carbon. While designers know how to reduce the embodied