45 results

  • Slipping through the Cracks

    We construct building enclosures to keep the elements out, but sometimes air and water infiltrate the building envelope, causing several problems for…

  • Execution Ways

    Business Insider has described San Francisco’s Chase Arena as setting “a new standard for a sports arena in the US”, and “the state-of-the-art arena …

  • 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…

  • 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 …

  • In Factory Commissioning

    Factory inspection visits are vital, yet they unfortunately have a habit of being overlooked. The factory inspection process during the Building Enve…

  • Kinetic Solar Envelope

    Kinetic responsive systems are gaining attention in architectural applications, to reduce the building’s energy consumption and environmental impact,…

  • HydroSKIN

    Building envelopes cover a considerable part of the urban exterior surfaces, and to therefore have a significant leverage effect on the climate resil…

  • 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…

  • Form as Energy

    All too often, high-performance building envelopes are considered in terms of new materials and technologies that push specific systems to improve en…

  • Xilinx Case Study featured image

    Xilinx Case Study

    The transformation of a dark and inhumane 1970s tilt-up concrete office building into a high performance, light-filled modern workplace was enabled b…

  • Sisteccer XIII — International Facade Conference

    SISTECCER, a joint production of ALUAR, DOW and VASA, has been consolidated through its previous twelve editions as a meeting place of excellence with experts from the country and abroad, to expand knowledge in technologies for building envelopes.

  • 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…

  • 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 …

  • Exo-Skins

    Cost-effective, sustainable, self-actuating, thermally-responsive, bio-composite exo-skins that act like shields or cloaks for existing buildings cou…

  • Balancing Visual Comfort and Energy Efficiency featured image

    Balancing Visual Comfort and Energy Efficiency

    With increasing interest in wellness and human-centric design in workplaces, the design of building enclosures is predicated on optimizing competing …

  • Designing with Photovoltaics

    Photovoltaics (PV) have been utilized in buildings for decades, especially in Europe where legislative support has largely driven the market. With ne…

  • Autonomous or Appropriate

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

  • Renewing Two Saarinen Icons

    Kresge Auditorium and the MIT Chapel, designed by Eero Saarinen and built in 1955, are both world renowned works of architecture and powerful symbols…

  • 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…