18 results

  • Saving Face featured image

    Saving Face

    In 1871, a fourth level Architecture course was offered in New York City that instructed on topics such as heating, ventilation and circulation of wa…

  • ETFE Membrane Envelope Strategies featured image

    ETFE Membrane Envelope Strategies

    Airflow within the cavity of double-skin facades is a key component of adaptive building envelopes which change thermophysical properties to meet cha…

  • CR∆CKİNG THЄ C󉘳DЄ // DYN∆MİC L∆B F∆C∆DЄS featured image

    CR∆CKİNG THЄ C󉘳DЄ // DYN∆MİC L∆B F∆C∆DЄS

    The real estate market continues to demand “all glass” buildings often to the detriment of human comfort and thermal performance. For an office build…

  • The Performative Double-Skin featured image

    The Performative Double-Skin

    Double-Skin Facades (DSF) are well-known to boost the thermal performance of a façade: they can provide extra insulation in the wintertime and lower …

  • Breathing Lessons featured image

    Breathing Lessons

    For a new corporate headquarters in San Francisco’s Mission Bay district, SHoP Architects designed a semi-conditioned atrium space inside the externa…

  • ACT Facade featured image

    ACT Facade

    Due to material and technological advancement during the last century, transparency has become a prominent trend in contemporary architecture. Howeve…

  • 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 …

  • The Double Skin Facade featured image

    The Double Skin Facade

    The largest source of air pollution in North America is the atmospheric boundary layer of a city caused by its urban canyons with pollutants produced…

  • Reinforced Polymer Concrete Screen Walls featured image

    Reinforced Polymer Concrete Screen Walls

    Apertures is a six-story, commercial building in the Roma Norte neighborhood of Mexico City–a neighborhood severely impacted by the 1985 and 2017 ear…

  • Carbon-Neutral High-Rise Envelope Nexus

    The pathway to carbon-neutrality, as urged during the COP 21 in Paris, and the repeated goal for resilient buildings and urban habitats, winds right …

  • 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…

  • Translation from Concept to Construction featured image

    Translation from Concept to Construction

    Fidelity between the built enclosure and early visualizations is rarely, if ever, an accident. When achieved, it comes as the result of persistent ef…

  • Performance of Compact, Closed Cavity, Double-skin Curtain Wall featured image

    Performance of Compact, Closed Cavity, Double-skin Curtain Wall

    A proposed design for a compact, closed cavity, double-skin curtain wall system in the Marine climate of the West Coast raises questions of potential…

  • Curved Forming Panel Facades featured image

    Curved Forming Panel Facades

    The performative and visual aspects of curved forming/bending thin “formable” planar materials is explored. Early tests for deflection indicate that …

  • 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…

  • Shadow Box Design featured image

    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 …