171 results

  • Towards Net Zero Enclosures

    As architects and designers we understand the urgency of addressing the building sector’s role in the ongoing environmental crisis. Architecture2030 …

  • 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…

  • Build Test Iterate Repeat

    The global increase in atmospheric temperature rise combined with the rapid growth of previously underdeveloped climate zones presents a growing need…

  • Modelling Perimeter Heating Demand

    Thermal discomfort can occur in perimeter zones due to radiant heat loss from the occupant to a poorly insulated exterior wall. It is valuable for ar…

  • When Facades Kill

    The tragic fire of June 14, 2017 at the Grenfell Tower in London, England has brought to a very public global forum issues related to the impact of f…

  • Shaping Skin

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

  • Smart Colored Window Technology featured image

    Smart Colored Window Technology

    Traditional architecture can be a valuable source of inspiration for designers. Sustainable design concepts in traditional architecture have been exp…

  • BESTfest

    Since the beginning of the pandemic, building enclosures have received closer scrutiny, with everyone from consumers to building professionals to local and federal government, wanting to know more about their technologies and performance. The BESTfest seminar brings together industry leaders and...

  • Thermal Performance of Closed Cavity Facades

    Closed cavity facades (CCF), a configuration of Double Skin Facade (DSF), consists of a double-glazed unit on the inner layer and single glazing on t…

  • Doubling Mies

    Mies van der Rohe’s concurrently designed projects for Commonwealth Promenade Apartments (1953-1956) and the Esplanade Apartments (1953-1957), saw th…

  • Retrofit Options for Historic Facades

    Building design criteria requires that government buildings be designed for a variety of extreme loads including blast, hurricane, and impact conditi…

  • Envelope For Service

    Envelope-for-Service (E4S) is a novel business model developed with the aim of converting the building façade from a traditionally traded good to a c…

  • Renewing Historic Facades

    As the first phase of a $4 billion dollar, 180-acre, 60 building government preservation project in Washington DC, this case study reviews the envelo…

  • 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 objec…