21 results

  • Environmentally Responsible Wood Cladding

    This case study focuses on the solutions provided for the Bell Museum at the University of Minnesota. Our design team worked with the client to creat…

  • Integrating Structure and Cladding

    The project represents a successful integration of a glass facade with the primary structure of the building. The choice of the building material is …

  • Academic Wood Tower Choreography featured image

    Academic Wood Tower Choreography

    With an ever-growing interest in mid- and high-rise mass timber construction, this paper highlights the insights and lessons learned across global ma…

  • 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…

  • Reconfigurable Terracotta Facade

    The traditional building facade as a permanent construction does not actively respond to the differing needs from varying weather conditions. Convent…

  • Passively Actuated Systems

    Kinetic or responsive facades have been developed to improve buildings' daylighting conditions while mitigating energy consumption. Still, these faca…

  • Kinematic Structural Glass

    The structural glass storefront facade at 111 Main Street in Salt Lake City lends itself as a case study in accommodating large building displacement…

  • Terracotta 1912 to 2018 featured image

    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…

  • Low-Carbon Cladding and Shading Design

    In the last few years, the design community has embraced the challenge of reducing embodied carbon in buildings. Several tools are now available for …

  • Facade Games

    This paper provides an overview of a course focusing on the façade as taught to architecture students over a twenty-year period. The need for this s…

  • Impact Of Thermal Bridges On The Energy Response Of A Building featured image

    Impact Of Thermal Bridges On The Energy Response Of A Building

    The European building stock is mainly constituted by highly energy demanding buildings. The only way to a more sustainable and decarbonized building …

  • Envelope For Service featured image

    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…

  • Green Façade/Roofs Design Tool featured image

    Green Façade/Roofs Design Tool

    Climate change and related thermal issues, draw attention to the impact of green facades and roofs on energy savings and thermal comfort. Besides, by…

  • 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 …

  • Carbon-Dioxide-Inhaling Facade featured image

    Carbon-Dioxide-Inhaling Facade

    3.5 billion years ago, cyanobacteria created the foundation for life on Earth by producing the oxygen basis for our atmosphere. Should we once again …

  • The Versatile Envelope Garden featured image

    The Versatile Envelope Garden

    Facades play an integral role in defining the experience of modern life. As rising populations gravitate from rural to urban communities, they bring …

  • The Myth of Simplicity

    There were good why reasons early US Modernism first evolved in California– wide open sites with no constraints (physical or zoning), and effectively…

  • 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 …

  • Put Your Sweater On! featured image

    Put Your Sweater On!

    During the particularly cold first months of 1977 President Jimmy Carter, in what some call “The Sweater Speech,” famously noted how much energy coul…