Façade design plays an important role in building performance and occupant comfort. In a recent article, Architect’s Newspaper surveyed the leading women in façade design, including Payette Principal and Director of Building Science Andrea Love, on the challenges and opportunities of façade design in the architectural industry. The responses offer an informal cross section of challenges including climate change and security and a discussion on the multi-material revolution in façade design.
In the article, Andrea Love discusses some of our current research projects and tool developments for façade design including a tool that determines the impact glazing has on summer comfort to complement our Glazing and Winter Comfort Tool.
We are also exploring the life cycle assessment of typical facade systems to understand their embodied environmental impact. We continue to explore new ways to leverage simulation tools to understand performance and drive design on several projects across our office.
The thing I find most interesting about façades today is the increase in attention paid toward their role in building performance and occupant comfort. Whether it is a high-performance façade for passive survivability for resiliency or consideration of the embodied carbon impact, I find it exciting to see how we as an industry are embracing the important role that facades play.
Andrea Love, AIA, LEED Fellow
Read the article.
Cape Cod Community College’s Frank and Maureen Wilkens Science and Engineering Center is a net-positive energy building designed to transform the heart of campus.
The project approaches sustainability through a holistic and global approach, implementing a range of moves including passive solar shading overhangs, air-source heat pumps, high performance materials with low embodied carbon and the expansion of the range of thermal comfort and lighting power density. Combined with on-site photovoltaics, the project achieves net-positive energy use.
The project’s thermally modified wood rainscreen façade is a study of the modern expression of vernacular Cape Cod architecture while reducing embodied carbon. Early lifecycle assessments identified the immense carbon savings of wood over fiber cement. The design team did not stop there, furthering reductions by peeling back unnecessary finishes like carpet and ceilings. Together, these decisions enabled a 19% reduction in embodied carbon.
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