35 results

  • Shaping Skin

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

  • 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 …

  • The Craft of Building Enclosures

    This paper will provide case studies of two high-performance building envelopes in the San Francisco Bay Area where the fabrication of bespoke façade…

  • Highly Efficient Façades with Innovative Shading and Light Control featured image

    Highly Efficient Façades with Innovative Shading and Light Control

    The Science and Engineering Complex (SEC) on the Allston Campus is the largest new building at Harvard University in recent decades with a footprint …

  • Structuring Skin

    Curtain wall is the prevailing type of enclosure on modern buildings because of its economy, its independence from structure that allows flexibility …

  • Doubling Mies featured image

    Doubling Mies

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

  • Glass Spandrels and Shadow Boxes featured image

    Glass Spandrels and Shadow Boxes

    Glass spandrels are a common design strategy utilized to opacify floor levels in building facades. These opaque glass assemblies are integrated into …

  • Shadow Box Design

    Shadow boxes are commonly used in curtain wall construction, but can be problematic if not designed and detailed correctly and appropriately for the …

  • Infinite Panel System

    Today, building facades are expected to do much more than merely provide shelter, which is driving the need for higher performing envelope solutions.…

  • United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum

    Advanced fabrication processes combined with parametric 3D modeling give designers and architects the freedom and versatility to push the boundaries …

  • Steel As A Curtain Wall Framing Material featured image

    Steel As A Curtain Wall Framing Material

    This paper will explore steel forming methods other than cold drawn or hot rolled processes, and how they allow steel to be utilized as the primary f…

  • Slipping through the Cracks featured image

    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…

  • Retrofit Options for Historic Facades featured image

    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…