Nuanced Solutions for Greener Façades
While innovation with rainscreens and polycarbonate, among other materials, is a major driver for today's façade designs, in some cases architects are also relying on timeless, classic approaches that have benefited from incremental improvements over the decades. As an example, tried-and-true anodized aluminum finishes are seen as resilient, sustainable and healthy, says Phil Pearce, LEED AP, vice president of sales and marketing for Lorin Industries, which anodizes aluminum coil for architectural uses. “It may cost more than paint, but it never chips, peels, or flakes, and it passes a pencil hardness test for graffiti resistance, ASTM D3363,” says Pearce.
Photo courtesy of EXTECH/Exterior Technologies Inc.
The Volo Aviation hangar at Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford, Conn., designed by Beinfield Architecture, uses a full-height translucent polycarbonate facade to provide insulation as well as daylighting within the large technical facility.
While industrial anodizing dates to the mid-1920s, the results still can outshine other metal finishes, especially with the color and finish consistency that continuous coil anodizing can deliver, as opposed to batch or piece-part anodizing. Yet many of those metal cladding assemblies benefit from design processes and material innovations that are only recently becoming mainstream.
Inflection Points in Façade Design
For a closer look at how façade and cladding product approaches are shifting architectural currents, the following five topics demonstrate where manufacturers and fabricators have provided products or systems that lend subtle inflection points. These begin with the emergence of new design tools that are successfully expanding the horizons of building envelope performance.
Underlying the new tools—which include standalone online calculators, specification analytics, and output ready for use with building information modeling (BIM) platforms—are widespread concerns about incomplete or inappropriate specification practices. “Experienced architects know you can't just always go with what you've used before,” says Andy Nixon, a builder sales manager and architectural specialist for Simonton Windows & Doors. “Yet the specs we see are often very broad, or they list performance and thermal characteristics that are out of synch with the project or application.”
Nixon and other window makers recommend that architects spell out the required standards, including American Architectural Manufacturers Association (AAMA) certifications, the North American Fenestration Standard (NAFS), and National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) listings. Specifications should also provide all relevant performance components, such as U-values, visible light transmission (VLT), and solar heat-gain coefficient (SHGC), among others.
Photo courtesy of Bosa Development
Some façade systems, like the one used for Insignia Tower in Seattle, designed by Perkins & Company Architects, are designed so that each infill of glass, panel, operable window, or door is individually drained, as well as the surround of the window.
In total, the designer should be able to answer seven or eight basic questions beyond aesthetics, including the frame material choice, the required AAMA performance grade (PG), and the design pressure (DP), which identifies the wind and snow loads the product can withstand. Newer spec criteria include air leakage, which Nixon says will be required for the federal Energy Star program in 2015, as well as any specialized criteria for acoustics, impact resistance, security, child safety, and protections for wildlife, such as birds and sea turtles.
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