IGS USA Special Issue | Summer 2020 by IGS Magazine

Intelligent Glass Solutions

CHICAGO

MASSACHUSE TTS

NEW YORK

Summer 2020

Now Is The Time For Innovation Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s so intelligent about glass? An IPL magazine

Ian Ritchie has...The Glass Word

WASHINGTON DC

LET LOOSE WITH GLASS Natural light is the ultimate building material â&#x20AC;&#x201C; providing warmth, energy, even soul. Our intelligent shading systems talk over IP to lighting and HVAC systems, and use high performance fabrics to give you the freedom to design in more glass, specify clearer glass, and still exceed g-value requirements.

DESIGN SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY.

01926 310850 solar@guthriedouglas.com www.guthriedouglas.com

Intelligent Glass Solutions (IGS)

US Special Issue Summer 2020 Our heartfelt thank you to ALL of our wonderful contributors in this special edition

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Structural Engineering at its FINEST!

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The Essential Presence of Light By Honorary VIP Guest Author James Carpenter Founding Principal of James Carpenter Design Associates inc. NYC, USA ÂŠJCDA

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ÂŠNic Lehoux, courtesy of JCDA

â&#x20AC;&#x153;For myself, light has always been the valued commodity which glass can deliver and it is light that we seek in both the public realm and private space. Differentiations in how light is experienced, from its more shadowed presence to its moments of brilliance and sparkle, are the steppingstones to understanding the environment surrounding us.â&#x20AC;&#x153;

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

e are certainly in one of the moments of time that calls for a radical reassessment of how we think about our built environment, specifically the types of buildings which will need to address both a modified working culture and the pressing need to address a more impactful sustainable future. Other such moments in the recent past which many of us have seen in our careers were the impact of the early 1970’s energy crisis which led to greatly reduced glazed areas in a building skin and the ubiquitous use of grey and bronze heat absorbing glasses that defined a ‘doomed to darkness’ work environment to the more recent 9/11 tragedy which, in the first few years following the event, triggered a skepticism whether businesses would ever again occupy such large buildings or what level of security and structural impregnability must we have or whether people would continue to live in cities such as New York.

I am very positive about our abilities to address the challenges for these necessary changes in the built environment for several reasons. I believe that we are clearly moving from a hierarchical work environment to a collective one, where the individual finds their personal space within a ‘public’ place. This alone necessitates more generous work environments that provide the highest level of air quality and healthfulness, spaces that encourage interaction amongst individuals and a connection to nature and light. There needs to be a connection between the internal ‘public spaces’ to the external ‘spaces-in-between’, the public spaces that interconnect with the buildings themselves, creating a richer complexity of urban space that distinguished itself from the mindset of singularity. And light. For myself, light has always been the valued commodity which glass can deliver and it is light that we seek in both the public realm and private space. Differentiations

in how light is experienced, from its more shadowed presence to its moments of brilliance and sparkle, are the steppingstones to understanding the environment surrounding us. How one reads the volumetric presence of light provides a richness and tactility that expands the experience of place. I foresee moving away from the large expanses of purely clear glass that have so fascinated us all these last few decades and moving towards a deeper understanding of how to distribute, and make manifest, qualities of light. Smaller windows that tune, re-project and re-interpret light, thus enhancing our awareness of life beyond the ‘view’. Collecting these varied lightevent fragments and bringing them optically into the space one occupies must reciprocally be embodied in the external expression of the skin, providing a reading of these lightevents to the public realm. The building skin we seek is one that provides all the above benefits to the occupant while simultaneously enriching and contributing to its surrounding community/environment.

James Carpenter has worked at the intersection of architecture, fine art, and engineering for nearly 50 years, advancing a distinctive vision based on the use of natural light as the foundational element of the built environment. Originally studying architecture before concentrating on the fine arts, Carpenter founded the cross-disciplinary design firm James Carpenter Design Associates in 1979 to support the application of these aesthetic principles to large-scale architectural projects. Carpenter’s work is driven by a deep awareness of materiality and craft as a means of enhancing the individual human experience within the built environment. Carpenter has been recognized with numerous national and international awards, including an Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and the Smithsonian National Environment Design Award. He holds a degree from the Rhode Island School of Design and was a Loeb Fellow of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and a Mellon Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago. ©James Ewing, courtesy of JCDA

James Carpenter Design A ssociates Inc.

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CASE STUDIES – TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES

Inside this Issue

Jane Frederick

Founding Partner of Frederick + Frederick Architects & President of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Let’s start asking ourselves what we can do in our everyday lives, as architects, builders, specifiers, and product manufacturers, to make a difference using smaller, actionable words like energy, resilience, health, and—especially—materials. If we can get materials like glass right, then I believe the rest will follow. PAGE 10

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CASE STUDIES – TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES

Erik Verboon

Managing Director NYC at Walter P Moore The formula for quality, responsible, and sustainable design is constantly evolving. While the opinion on what the metric or the resultant of this formula has evolved as well, the underlying belief is that we as an industry have to be more conscious of the resources we use to construct our buildings and scrutinize not only selected components but also the holistic view of how those constituent parts fit into the system of our planet. PAGE 26

Tali Mejicovsky

Associate Principal, Façade Engineering, Arup In keeping with United Nations Sustainable Design Guidelines (UN SDGs) for a more sustainable planet and new NYC legislation to reduce carbon emissions, making buildings more energy efficient and keeping birds safe, lies a huge opportunity to improve the performance of both our new constructions and existing building stock. PAGE 43

Jeanne Gang

Founding Principal and Partner of Studio Gang As New York continues its latest building boom, Solar Carve provides a site-specific counterpoint to the many object-like buildings that have sprung up along the High Line and elsewhere. Working at multiple scales, and with multiple properties of glass, its architecture demonstrates how density can be added to the city in a sensitive way that helps to enhance its surrounding environment. PAGE 50

Fabrice Nussbaumer

Creative Director Glass Troesch Group The two residential towers of the American Copper buildings are reminiscent of two slightly reclining dancers, linked together for eternity by a glass bridge around 100 metres above the ground. Even by New York standards, this striking building ensemble, designed by SHoP Architects for the developer JDS, is unusual both in terms of its design and the actual materials employed. PAGE 58

Christopher Johnson

Vice President, Building Envelope at Entuitive Without a doubt, emissions and embodied carbon reduction will (and have actually already started to) become primary design drivers. I also think that in a post pandemic world, building design will evolve to accommodate workplace and lifestyle changes which may affect envelopes in many ways. Finally, my earlier comments on glass notwithstanding, I do think we’ll see a continued steady decline in window-to-wall ratios, that is, fewer fully glazed facades and more opaque wall area on buildings. PAGE 66

Ian Ritchie

Founder of Ian Ritchie Architects Architects clearly delight in the play of light and play with light, reflected and refracted, both inside and outside buildings. In large modern cities, characterised by tall buildings with ever more geometrically complex and reflective facades, the interplay of multiple reflection and refraction, light and shadow, from and between buildings, can become as mathematically complex as it is visually beautiful. PAGE 116

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CONTENTS IGS USA SUMMER 2020 ISSUE INTRODUCTION 10 WHAT’S SO INTELLIGENT ABOUT GLASS? Jane Frederick – Founding Partner and President of Frederick + Frederick Architects and American Institute of Architects (AIA) Jane pens the introduction to our historic USA Special Issue of IGS, calling the industry to action.

E X E C U T I V E B OA R D R O O M C O M M E N TA RY F R O M T H E U S 16 FAÇADES IN TIMES OF PANDEMIC Belen Nemi – Design Architect, AIA International Associate, CPAU Registered Architect Facades of the future need to adapt to the challenges of a changing(ed) world – adaptability, resilience and transparency are no longer just ‘buzz words’, but concrete design strategies that should be mplemented to accommodate changing occupant needs in times of pandemic. 26 MORE WITH LESS + LESS WITH MORE Erik Verboon - Managing Director NYC at Walter P Moore Stuck between a rock and a hard place: how do we keep the aesthetic beauty of expansive glazing while improving building performance and carbon emissions. Erik removes the rock… 36 THE FUTURE OF HIGH PERFORMANCE FACADES Daniel Vos– Principal at Heintges With a collective understanding of our global impacts on the environment combined with mature design technology tools, the golden age of American Architecture is upon us. 43 FOLLOWING FAÇADE TRENDS IN NYC AND BEYOND Tali Mejicovsky – Associate Principal, Façade Engineering, Arup Covid-19, Climate, Codes, and Construction - Tali takes a look at the impacts of changing local and global conditions on building design.

T R A N S PA R E N T A R C H I T E C T U R A L S T R U C T U R E S I N T H E U S 50 SCULPTING A GOOD NEIGHBOR: NEW YORK’S SOLAR CARVE TOWER Jeanne Gang – Founding Principal and Partner of Studio Gang Unusual spatial conditions set the stage for the sui generis building design. A unique geometric glass façade and gem-like sculptural form defines this project from world class architectural practice Studio Gang. 58 TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES AND THE GLASS SPECIFIED FOR EACH PROJECT …AND WHY Fabrice Nussbaumer - Creative Director at Glass Troesch AG What does the highest bridge in New York, a tapered lobby façade in Chicago, New York’s Avenue of the Americas and a spy museum in Washington have in common? They are all clad with glass from industry leaders Glass Troesch. Discover the stories behind these fascinating and unique projects with Fabrice.

IGS INTERVIEWS 66 ENGINEERING PERFORMANCE WE CAN SEE Christopher Johnson – Vice President, Building Envelope at Entuitive IGS Magazine’s Lewis Wilson discusses AI, building performance, leveraging technologies and the chasm between architects and engineers with Christopher Johnson in this candid interview.

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CONTENTS IGS USA SUMMER 2020 ISSUE GLOBA L CASE ST UDIES A ND T RENDS GA INING T RACT ION 74 MANHATTAN WEST – THE PENDRY Christoph Timm – Associate Director at SOM, New York An undulating series of curves in front of the sky canvas serves as one of the building’s defining architectural features. Christoph gives IGS readers an exclusive look into one of the largest and most complex developments currently underway in New York City. 86 NOW IS THE TIME FOR INNOVATION: FUTURE-PROOFING THE BUILDING INDUSTRY Nick Leahy – Principal at Perkins Eastman “The best way to predict the future is to design it.” - Buckminster Fuller. Nick applies this sentiment to the AEC Industry in this thought-provoking editorial that calls for innovation and much needed R&D investment in architecture. 92 ACTIVE AND ADAPTIVE Paul Denz – Head of Research & Development at Priedemann The Challenge? Transforming the facade of one of Manhattan’s 60-year-old buildings to reduce carbon emissions and address the city’s Green New Deal. The Solution? Priedemann’s ACT façade, reducing effort and resources on building refurbishment whilst still enhancing façade performance. 100 TIME TO ADOPT FAÇADE ENGINEERING 4.0 AND BRING WELCOME RELIEF TO POINTS OF PAIN Douglas Sum – Associate, Facade Services Group Leader at Aurecon Engineers are the modern-day master builder - digitisation, optimization and visualisation and collaboration are their new tools of the trade. 107 U.S. GLASS TRENDS: RELY ON MULTIFUNCTIONALITY Julia Schimmelpenningh – Global Architectural Applications Manager at Eastman Chemical Company With evolving requirements for building facades, the future of architectural glass lies in the concept of multifunctionality, or glass that can achieve a number of design objectives in one product. 112 ON REFLECTIVITY Andreas Bittis - International Market Manager Façade at Saint-Gobain What is reflectivity? What does it stand for? And how can we design with it? Andreas gives IGS readers expert insight into the nuances of the complex nature of glass reflectivity and coatings.

THE GLASS WORD 116 BLINDED BY THE LIGHT: THE DAZZLING AND DISTURBING GLARE FROM GLASS BUILDINGS| Ian Ritchie – Founder of Ian Ritchie Architects “Light is the opium of the architect and shadow its form.” (Ian Ritchie, 2002). Ian is the architectural doctor, the ailment? Overdose! Find out the cure…

Intelligent Glass Solutions

CHICAGO

MASSACHUSE TTS

NEW YORK

WASHINGTON DC

Summer 2020

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Now Is The Time For Innovation What’s so intelligent about glass? An IPL magazine

Ian Ritchie has...The Glass Word

The entire content of this publication is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. None of the content in this publication can be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, without permission, in writing, from the copyright owner. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this publication, however the publisher does not accept any liability for ommissions or inaccuracies. Authors’ views are not necessarily endorsed by the publisher.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

INTRODUCTION

Architects can capitalize on client trust

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s so

intelligent Jane Frederick, FAIA, President of the American Institute of Architects

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INTRODUCTION

to push climate action on every project

about

glass?

Keller Center_credit Jacob Hand

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INTRODUCTION

s I look out of my own window while I write this, I know this isn’t a rhetorical question. The glazing I specify for my clients who live, as I do, in the hottest and stickiest part of the US, matters as much as the plans I draw or the spaces I create. My choices on their behalf are matters of trust, and as my design choices improve the quality of life for my clients, their trust in me ultimately improves the quality of professional life for architects, builders, and product manufacturers. I like to specify intelligent, high-performing glass that will provide comfort and a view on the world for years to come. I also like to specify glass and other materials smartly—as an ambassadorial commitment to architects and the vital role I believe we play in making a better world. Yes, I’m talking about the U-factor and the solar heat gain ratio for south-facing windows on any given project in Beaufort, South Carolina, where I live and work. But I am also talking about how seemingly tiny decisions like these can have a big impact. I’m talking about the small part we all play in the larger effort of reducing our carbon emissions. This is the new trust that I believe we, as architects, builders, and building product manufacturers, must forge with clients.

M4 Environmental Nature Center_credit Chris Costea

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Etsy greenwall_credit Garrett Rowland

UPCycle_Key Image_Dror Baldinger.

INTRODUCTION

AustinC entral Library_credit Nick Lehoux

What’s at stake if we cannot emerge as honorable and upright leaders united in environmental action? The same thing that was at stake for public health officials in March, April, and May had they not prevailed, to the extent they could, in slowing the spread of COVID-19. Professional integrity, yes, but to a greater degree, the health, safety, and welfare of people who trust us to know how to make buildings and spaces that are harmless and beautiful. (And, yes, there is room for beauty here. More on that in a moment.) COVID-19 will transform our economy, and this recession will challenge every architecture firm in every country. For some, the challenge will be to remain financially solvent. For others, the challenge will be to remain relevant. The irony? COVID-19 and the global economy’s slow-down has not derailed our collective action plans for the environment, but rather complimented them. As many of us stayed home for weeks on end, we reduced carbon emissions by more than 4%, according to analysts at Carbon Brief—an unthinkable achievement in such

a short amount of time. It came at a high economic cost, and even as government bailouts attempted to stem losses across the board, a reckoning for retailers, airlines, and other industries is inevitable. This virus will remake economies, and the already disenfranchised will struggle in unimaginable ways. With this in mind, it is bittersweet to learn that the International Energy Agency has projected that we will reduce our emissions by 8% globally at the end of this calendar year and, if we can maintain this 7-8% drop annually, we will be able to achieve the Paris Agreement’s tolerable 1.5° Celsius annual increase above pre-industrial levels. Can we build on this momentum to reach our targets and reboot the global economy at the same time? That’s a regulations question, and from Washington to Whitehall, there is an army of committed environmentalists answering it right now. In partnership with policy, and on the program side, the climate action plan that I helped develop for the American Institute of

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INTRODUCTION

Architects (AIA) [LINK to AIA’s climate action plan?] joins similar plans proffered by the Royal Institute of British Architects, the climate action initiative of the Union of International Architects, and others in scope and urgency.

AFTER_FordFoundation_GarrettRowland

The AIA’s plan builds on its deep bench of research and resources in four interdependent “priority” areas: energy, design and health, resilience, and materials. Buildings must use and produce only clean energy; buildings must be designed to promote health and wellbeing; and buildings must survive disaster and adapt to future climate conditions. But, it is the fourth priority area, materials, that seems most actionable for readers of IGS Magazine: buildings must sequester carbon through adaptive use of whole structures and individual materials; new materials must be specified with an eye toward immediate factors like off-gassing, as well as end-oflife reuse; architects must address building

Columbus United States Land Port of Entry _credit Robert Reck

TheSix 001 Front at twilight_credit Tara Wujcik

“The AIA’s plan builds on its deep bench of research and resources in four interdependent “priority” areas: energy, design and health, resilience, and materials. Buildings must use and produce only clean energy; buildings must be designed to promote health and wellbeing; and buildings must survive disaster and adapt to future climate conditions”

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John W Olver_credit Albert Vecerka

INTRODUCTION

life cycles and practice what I call embodied carbon design; and new construction should address the strong preference for its adaptation one day. If reuse proves unfeasible, deconstruction should be as harmless to the environment as possible. All of this is part of what we at AIA call the Framework for Design Excellence. The institute adopted the framework last year to pair these priority concepts with high-impact strategies to set climate action goals, frame conversations with clients (such as the homeowners I work with all the time), and provide tools to measure and track progress. Even in this milieu of an ongoing public health crisis and a pandemic that promises to disrupt life as we know it, we have the power to make changes, too, to the way we work today and to the way we wish to work tomorrow. In order to make these changes meaningful—

beyond epidemiology, beyond public health’s best practices, and even beyond political will—we must strike now while we have a window of opportunity to generate lasting ecological improvements. We must begin with the building sector and architectural practices (and specification) as the arena for climate mitigation. We must anticipate energy demands and adapt our buildings to meet them, all while pursuing net zero carbon emissions. Meaningful change like this requires leadership anchored by global cooperation. But, it also requires you. So, let’s stop asking rhetorical questions about big words like sustainability. Let’s start asking ourselves what we can do in our everyday lives, as architects, builders, specifiers, and product manufacturers, to make a difference using smaller, actionable words like energy, resilience, health, and—especially—materials. If we can get materials like glass right, then I believe the rest will follow.

L. Jane Frederick, FAIA 2020 President Jane Frederick, FAIA, is principal at Frederick + Frederick Architects, which received AIA South Carolina’s 2017 Firm Award and Southern Living magazine’s Best Renovation of 2009. The Beaufort, South Carolina, firm specializes in custom residences and has earned 18 state and local design awards. Jane has served AIA in many roles, including as south Atlantic regional representative on the Strategic Council, at-large director on the national Board of Directors, a member of the AIA Small Firm Round Table Executive Committee, president of AIA South Carolina, and a member of NAAB Accreditation teams. She has also chaired numerous local planning boards and is a fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

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EXECUTIVE BOARDROOM COMMENTARY

Façades in times of pandemic Architect Belén Nemi

Bloomframe. Image © HofmanDujardin

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

EXECUTIVE BOARDROOM COMMENTARY

INTRODUCTION These days the world is experiencing one of the largest healthcare crisis of the last decade. People have been asked by governments and health organizations to stay at home as much as possible to avoid spreading the COVID-19 virus. Lifestyle as we know, during quarantine, is being redefined and our daily habits challenged. Living, working and playing now happens in a single building; there is minimal commuting, minimal social interaction and minimal outdoor activities. Some people have larger homes, with gardens, patios and outdoor spaces where they can spend their quarantine and still go out and breathe some fresh air. However, this is not always the case in big agglomerations and dense metropolises where apartments are smaller and a larger number of people live per building with only windows to connect to the outside world. In some cases, the windows do not even open… For individuals living in apartments during quarantine, their only physical and visual connection (not virtual) with the outside world; life, sunlight, fresh air and nature, takes place through windows, balconies and terraces. All social interactions between people occur in these “intermediate spaces” that connect the interior of the home with the external world; we know this intermediate space as the Envelope of the building, THE FAÇADE. Professionals from all disciplines are questioning ways to help improve health and wellness measures in the current crisis. Architects and designers are examining the role design can play now and in the near future. The same questions have become prevalent in architectural and façade discourse… Will this pandemic change the way architects design their buildings? And, what characteristics should façades have in order to promote wellness in times of quarantine?

How can façade design improve the wellbeing of the building occupants? Below we will describe several design approaches that can help promote wellness for occupants through optimal façade performance and energy efficiency, as well as environmentally responsive design. The use of sustainable strategies, including solar passive systems and diversity of schemes adaptable to change are proposed as key elements to the “new” future of façade design.

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EXECUTIVE BOARDROOM COMMENTARY

Study: Adaptable façade systems for balcony enclosure • Movable panels • Panels can independently slide and rotate • 3 Prototype panels 1. Rotating Louvers 2. Organic Wall 3. Hydroponic Crop 1. Rotating Louvers

Position 1 Panels + louvers fully closed Privacy device: block outsiders views Shading device: allow minimal indirect sunlight Air flow: allow minimal natural ventilation

Position 2 Panels closed + louvers opened Semiprivate device: partially closed allowing limited views outside Shading device: allow indirect sunlight Air flow: allow natural ventilation

Marthashof, by Grüntuch-Ernst Architects

1. Recesses and projections; Importance of Outdoor spaces Many people that live in metropolitan areas do not have access to a garden or outdoor space. Especially during quarantine, being indoors and confined to four walls for the majority of the day can be monotonous and exhausting. When designing façades for residential buildings, living outdoor spaces can be a welcome reprieve from this monotony and are essential elements to introduce into the design. Position 3 Panels partially open, rotated 45 degrees + closed louvers Panels rotated: allowing directed views outside Shading device: allow directed sunlight in Air flow: allow natural ventilation

Position 5 Panels collapsed; balcony fully open Panels clustered: creating a fully outdoor space Full exposure to outdoor environment; sun light and air flow Full connection with neighbors and nearby community

Position 4 Panels rotated 90 degrees open + closed louvers Panels rotated: allowing directed views outside Shading device: allow directed sunlight in Air flow: allow natural ventilation

Position 6 Panels rearranged + louvers fully closed Privacy device: panels create a subdivision of the outdoor space, creating both a public and a private zone. Shading device: encloses private zone, allowing minimal sunlight

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Benefits of integrating adaptable outdoor spaces in façades: • Provide flexibility for the occupant, and extra space to use for different functions. • Provide a source of fresh air and natural sunlight to be exposed too. • Provide physical connectivity with the nearby community and social activities occurring outside. • Introduce vegetation At the same time, this outdoor space should be adaptable in terms of usability, allowing the occupant to maximize the use of the area and its function. In some cases, the dweller may want to have full or partial enclosure (physical or visual) of the “external zone” to have privacy. In other cases, the individual might want openness and exposure in order to interact with the neighbors or surrounding social activities (within the immediate environment). The façade design should therefore provide enough area and flexibility to accommodate the outdoor activities as per the user’s evolving needs.

EXECUTIVE BOARDROOM COMMENTARY

Pixel Facades by PIXEL / image by Mengyi Fan

Outdoor areas can also function as an alternative space to work from home. The performance of the individual can be improved due to the change in visuals, fresh air, sun exposure, outdoor environment and connection to the community.

2. Spatial layering and dynamism; Importance of Resilience in façades Whether outdoor spaces are created from recesses and projections generated from a building´s massing, originate from the voids in the use of shading devices that protrude from a façade or have appeared within a double skin façade that surrounds a structure, by responding to energy efficiency requirements they will directly affect the comfort of the residents. The experiences of the resident in this “intermediate zone” can always be enhanced by the combination of one or more of the design strategies mentioned above. For instance, the combination of exterior solar control elements (such as overhangs, fins, exterior skins, louvers, blinds or full window-screen geometries of various materials) can provide a response to climatic factors (reducing solar heat gain and glare), as well as being a solution to privacy requirements. Furthermore, dynamic systems will be more resilient in order to comply with variable resident’s needs. For example, collapsible perforated metal panels can work as a shading device and also function as a privacy division for a balcony. The idea is to provide as much flexibility

“The architect designed façade elements that can be easily moved around to convert internal space into external space, and vice versa. Individual residents decide whether and where they need terraces and annexes, using the external space for these purposes. This creates exciting spatial perspectives; more excitingly, the ultimate form of the dwelling is truly the brainchild of the resident. In addition, the permanent decorative elements allow the façade to radiate unity despite its variety.” from “Connecting Inside and Outside in Time-Based Dwelling” by Birgit Jurgenhake. as possible, so the same system should provide a full open balcony, partial closure or full closure. With a wide range of technology available in the façade systems market, an ever-expanding availability of different materials and unparalleled design innovation, there is a vast world of possibilities to create different design approaches for adaptable façades.

On her Study; Adaptable facade systems for balcony enclosure, Architect Belén Nemi proposes a series of dynamic panel systems to comply with variable resident’s needs.

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EXECUTIVE BOARDROOM COMMENTARY

2. Organic Wall This Organic Wall Panel design combines the use of climbers that anchor themselves to a stainless-steel cable by twining stems or tendrils, enabling vegetation to grow inside a movable aluminum frame, to create a partition, privacy screen or sunshade. The level of visuals and shading will depend on the type of vegetation used, density of the foliage and the season. By integrating vegetation into a balcony enclosure, a cooler microclimate its generated due to direct shading of the outdoor space as well as from the cooling from plant foliage (transpiration of water through the leaves), and evaporative loss of water from the growing medium. In addition, the use of climbing plants can provide stormwater retention (in the soil), and capture of airborne particulate matter and volatile gaseous pollutants. By integrating Organic Wall Panels as part of the balcony enclosure, green views are warrantied despite the context of the building’s location, enhancing occupant’s mood and wellbeing.

Birgit Jurgenhake from Delft University of Technology has a very appealing way of describing how people experience façades and like to interact with them, suggesting a sense of ownership. In her paper “Connecting Inside and Outside in Time-Based Dwelling”, she states that people live both with and in façades. She explains “spatial layering in a façade creates sequences, which offer residents many options for using an enclosure. The layers offer a transition between inside and outside, between the public and private spaces (…) They (dwellers) wish to exercise control over this transition and their contact with the environment just as much as they wish to control the light, air, temperature in their homes.” Innovative design Furthermore, there are innovative options for upgrading façades to offer an alternative outdoor space where there isn’t already one existing. An example of this is Bloomframe, a state-of-the-art folding balcony designed by Hofman Dujardin Architects. The system allows the occupant to “open” a window and turn it into an outdoor balcony space. This cutting-edge design solution could potentially increase the wellbeing of people who currently do not benefit from an outdoor space in dense metropolitan areas.

3. Green façades; Connection to the natural environment

Prototype 1 Panels with integrated vegetation Shading device + Privacy device: will depend on the position and quantity of panels and density of the foliage Air flow: Allow natural ventilation and capture of airborne particles and volatile gaseous pollutants

Prototype 2 Panels with integrated vegetation + outdoor furniture Panels can slide and rotate allowing the generation of different zones withing the outdoor space. This panel design incorporates a folding bench. This is an example of the multiple simple designs that can be done in order to improve the experiences and wellbeing of the occupant.

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In the last decades, architects and engineers have studied, tested and proposed various solutions to integrate vegetation into façades. The reasons behind incorporating vegetation are not only aesthetic, but in most cases, have been advocated to solve other aspects of design and energy efficiency. All these aspects are directly related to benefiting the wellbeing of the occupant, either directly interfering with their dwelling, visually, or to support an alternative need such as food provision. • Aesthetics and views. Façades that incorporate plants as part of their design enrich the aesthetics of the building, contribute to enhanced street visuals and improve the occupant’s view. The sense of looking outside the window and seeing greenery can enhance the wellness of the dwellers. Moreover, having the alternative of going into an open space (even in a skyscraper) and seeing a significant amount of vegetation at a close distance can improve mood and decrease stress levels. In addition, this design solution provides an active and mutable appearance; since vegetation is an organic component and varies throughout seasons, the façade will constantly change throughout the year and never look the same. Potentially, a green façade can also create a habitat for wildlife, even in an urban area. • Solar shading devices. The integration of vegetation in façades has also been used as part of Solar passive design; this solution has been utilized in a wide variety of projects in order to provide shading to the interior of buildings. In addition, this organic shading system alleviates and reduces unwanted heat gain during the day. • Thermal Insulation. Drawing parallels with green roofs that provide insulation for buildings, vegetation integrated into façades has the capability to partially block sun rays, reducing heat absorption on the surface behind them. This may result in reducing cooling energy cost for the tenant.

EXECUTIVE BOARDROOM COMMENTARY

Bloomframe. Image Â© HofmanDujardin

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3. Hydroponic Crop This Hydroponic Crop Panel design combines the use of plants with little nutrient and water needs that are placed in PVC pipes in different levels in a hydroponic substrate, enabling vegetation to grow inside a movable PVC or aluminum frame, to create a personal crop, partition or screen. The species used should be resistant to local climate and suitable to grow in a hydroponic substrate. This panel considers an irrigation system inside the structure (to provide water and nutrients for the plants) as well as a hydroponic substrate for vegetation growth. This panel (as shown in the sketch) could be considered as a PASSIVE hydroponic system that functions without additional energy (only including the subtract and a nutrient container). However, this panel could be upgraded with additional pumps for drip irrigation, aerators (to introduce oxygen), humidifiers and timers, to be considered an ACTIVE hydroponic system in order to be more effective in terms of plant growths. Hence, this would make more complex the design (by requiring electricity connection for example) and would limit the mobility of the panels. By integrating Hydroponic Crop Panels as part of the balcony enclosure, the occupant has the option of growing its own fresh food improving their nutrition habits and wellbeing.

“Green building envelopes can help to reduce the urban up-heating (heat island effects), filter fine dust on the streets and reduce noise levels. (…) Where ‘green’ spaces can make cities more attractive and resilient, as vegetation filters fine particles from the air. The effective introduction of green building envelopes can result in local reduction in pollution of around 10-20%. Harnessing urban agriculture initiatives like vertical farming, beehives and wildlife corridors, can deliver better air quality.” Cities Alive; Green Building Envelopes by Arup Engineering • Cleaner air. According to Marc Ottelé from Delft University of Technology, green walls can reduce the number of air pollutants such as fine dust and carbon dioxide; “Smaller dust particles are often inhaled deep into the respiratory tract causing health problems. Ottelé believes that this accumulation of fine dust particles on the leaf surfaces has the ability to improve public health by keeping dust out of the air.” • Vertical farms with Hydroponics. Due to the increase of people living in metropolitan areas and the lack of suitable land to raise crops and fulfill the populations required food production, vertical farming has cemented itself as an important focus of the architectural and city planning agenda. Solutions to our modern-day food shortages have been pioneered by various architects across the globe. An example of this is a Vertically Integrated Greenhouse system into the façade by Kiss+Cathcart Architects and Arup. Their concept integrates food production into buildings, specifically growing hydroponic crops in building envelopes, façades and roofs. They propose a “lightweight, modular, climatically responsive vegetable culture system designed to be installed in the curtain wall of a high-rise building.” The designers describe the benefits of food production which make use of direct exposure to solar energy, as well as the benefits to the building occupants with regard to their connection to nature and access to healthier vegetables and fruits. While there have been numerous studies focused on developing these ideas further, there is still some apprehension as to how vertical farming could be integrated with façades efficiently as there are still some limitations with this technology.

4. Natural ventilation; Importance of Indoor Air Quality Prototype 1 Panels with integrated hydroponic systems to grow plants Panels can slide and rotate allowing the occupant to place the crop in the most suitable position for the sun exposure. This panels allow natural ventilation and potential shading, depending on the density of the plant foliage used for the crop.

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Being able to provide natural ventilation through façades will improve the experience of the person living in the space in different ways; • By designing naturally ventilated façades the occupant will have the option to ensure sufficient air exchange as needed. In times of pandemic this air exchange is advantageous when cleaning and disinfecting rooms, in favor of reducing the spread of illnesses inside the building. The United States Environmental Protection Agency states that, the lack of sufficient mechanical ventilation to ensure adequate air exchange in energy-efficient buildings may result

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Milan World Expo 2015, USA Pavilion by Biber Architects

Â© Bosco Verticale by Boeri Studio. Image: Giovanni Nardi

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4. Combined Panels

Image © Kiss + Cathcart, Architects

Prototype 1 Combining Panels Rotating Louvers, that regulate the amount of sunlight and airflow that reaches the outdoor space. Organic Wall, providing greenery at close distance. This panel design incorporates a wooden folding bench attached to the wooden planter. Allowing to improve the occupants experience and wellbeing. Hydroponic Crop, enabling the occupant to grow its own vegetables in a hydroponic substrate. in the increase of indoor concentrations of some pollutants that have negative impacts on people’s health. • Natural ventilation schemes can improve air quality and reduce cooling loads, employing the façade as an active air-control element. In addition, this may result in reducing operating energy cost for the occupant (minimizing cooling and heating). • Crossed ventilation is often taken for granted. However, this passive strategy helps improve the circulation of fresh air in a room without recurring to mechanical means, as an alternative sustainable source of air exchange within a space. • Different wellness organizations recommend performing outdoor activities in order to maintain a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Since

Prototype 2 Combining Panels and rearranging position Similar to Prototype 1, this design combines all 3 types of panels; each panel can slide and rotate. This panel movement generates spatial layering, creating both public and private zones and different transitions for the outdoor space. Kiefer Technic Showroom by Ernst Giselbrecht Partner. Image © Paul Ott

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going outdoors might not be an option during this crisis, being able to open a window and allow fresh air into the home may provide the only means to refreshment and improved wellbeing for the people indoors, as well as enhancing the experience of connection to the exterior world and immediate outdoor surroundings. • Designing naturally ventilated façades may enhance the occupant’s performance and improve mental health and functions for everyday activities as well as increasing work productivity from home.

5. Transparency; Importance of Sunlight The size of the windows is a key element to ensure enough sunlight reaches the interior of apartments throughout the day. In addition, allowing natural light to illuminate the rooms can significantly reduce the cost of artificial lighting for the occupant. The size of the windows will also be a significant factor in improving the view that occupant have of their surroundings. This might not be an issue in a low-density district but may become increasingly important in dense urban environments. The size of the window will allow a visual connection between the dweller and the sky, the street, the nearby buildings, the outdoor vegetation, the neighbors, etc. Especially in times of quarantine, where people are isolated, façade design can promote this important connection between the inhabitants and their neighborhood, improving visual connectivity and sense of being part of the community. Allowing natural sunlight to enter the rooms may also boost energy levels and productivity performance of people working from home. Health organizations state the benefits of moderate sun exposure; from promoting bone health and regulating vital calcium levels, throughout a number of benefits in functions in the body, including the functioning of the brain. As important as it is to allow direct and indirect sunlight to maintain physical and mental health in the workspace (now the house), it is equally important to propose solar control devices as part of the façade design.

Belén Nemi Architect Intl. Assoc. AIA / CPAU member As an Architect currently based in Dubai, with over 13 years of design and technical experience, including facade design and detailing, Belén has successfully worked on several largescale high-profile projects in South America, Europe and the Middle East. Since moving to the UAE, Belén worked in the international design firm Gensler in the Abu Dhabi office for over 6 years. On her first years she was promoted to Associate and has worked on a variety of projects from corporate HQ office buildings, and mixed-use projects through to hospitality and retail centres, including Vida Hotel & Apartments in Bahrain, National Bank of Abu Dhabi HQ and the award-winning retail centre The Avenues Bahrain. While facing clients and leading projects, her focus has been to provide design and technical solutions to comply with all stakeholder´s

CONCLUSION • By increasing the energy efficiency of the facades, by basic principles such as allowing the flow of natural ventilation, crossed ventilation and controlled daylight access. It can result in improving the indoor air quality ensuring a much healthier environment due to sufficient air exchange, reducing the risk of infections and improving the health of the building occupants, as well as reducing the operational cost for cooling and heating. Fresh air and natural sunlight in the dwellings can boost the energy levels and productivity performance of people living and working from home, directly improving their wellbeing. • By creating spatial layering in the facades, a sequence of zoning can be created in order to generate dynamic spaces that can transition from indoor to outdoor and from private to public, responding to the occupant’s daily habits, routines and needs. Through designing adaptable façade systems to meet the occupant’s variable usages, architects can contribute to improve their comfort at their place of residence. • By integrating vegetation into the facades, the mood of the occupants can be enhanced by improving the visuals and the connection to nature. In addition, integrated vegetation can provide solar shading and better thermal insulation resulting in possible decrease of operational costs. Furthermore, vertical farming with hydroponic systems integrated in facades could potentially be the future trend in order to grow healthier food for the buildings occupants, improving their wellbeing. However, there are pros and cons to vertical farming on how this could be integrated with the facades. The overall wellness result of the design strategies described above relies on the resilience of the façade and the flexibility to adapt to the occupants evolving needs in times of pandemic and in the near future.

interests, collaborating with multidisciplinary teams all over the world. For the last couple of years, her efforts have been in hospitality projects. In her early stages, Belén worked in a Facade Consultancy practice in Argentina with award-winning architects in projects such as; Carrasco´s International Airport in Uruguay (Rafael Vinoly Architects), Campus Repsol HQ in Madrid (Rafael de La-Hoz) and BBVA HQ in Madrid (Herzog & the Meuron), amongst others. In Dubai, Belén was a panelist in ZAK World of Facades Summit 2017 and Façade Design & Engineering Middle East Forum & Awards. In Argentina, she was a speaker in Batimat Expovivienda - Aluvi 2013, the largest construction exhibition in the region. In addition, while she worked in BestChem firm, she gave over a dozen lectures on weatherproofing and structural sealants and their application on glass facades. Since 2009, Belén holds an Architecture´s degree (M.Arch equiv.) from the University of Buenos Aires (FADU) in Argentina. She is an AIA International Associate since March 2016 and a chartered licensed member from the Architects and Urbanist Professional Council (CPAU) from Buenos Aires.

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with Less + Less with

More Adapting our approach to design and delivery 26

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Erik Veerboon, AIA Principal, Managing Director Walter P Moore

re the good times really over for good? I often think about these lyrics to the Merle Haggard song of the same name when faced with the challenges presented by increasingly stringent codes and sustainability trends. Trends like carbon neutrality are becoming driving parameters in the design of our enclosure systems. Gone are the days where building designs utilizing expansive glazing, with questionable thermal performance go unfettered by the governing bodies overseeing what we build or occupied by tenants apathetic and ill-informed about the impact these buildings have on our environment. I’m not old enough to give “Back in the Day stories”, nor did I start my career in a period where performance was not a concern, but I can say that what we have experienced in the realm of energy codes and sustainability initiatives in the last few years is markedly more intense than when I started my career seventeen years ago. Accountability is now the driving force behind how buildings are expected to perform and how their performance is proven and documented in the design and construction phases. And it’s about time.

Uber Mission Bay Headquarters

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Three related trends have been recurring through our recent work, all of which address project’s embodied or operational performance and involve the central concepts of doing More with Less or using Less with More. The term “performance” can be interpreted in many ways, but in the context of this article it is meant to define the amount of resources (energy, cost, carbon, etc) a building uses in its creation (embodied) and through it’s lifespan (operational). When it comes to architectural glazing, the concept of using Less with More adopts the precept that the beauty of expansive glazing will forever be central to the architectural vision despite increasingly strict energy codes and sustainability initiatives, and puts the onus on glazing manufacturing industry to keep finding ways to increase the performance of glazing systems in order to meet the increasingly stringent targets. Alternatively, More with Less addresses the growing trend towards carbon neutrality and Net Zero Carbon (NZC) design by limiting the carbon intensity of our glazed systems. Finally, incorporating both these tenets, is the concept of designing for adaptability, that addresses designing easily adaptable enclosure systems in order to allow for minimally invasive and wasteful retrofits to respond to future technologies and increasing energy use limitations. MORE WITH LESS The concept of quantifying a building’s impact from a carbon perspective rather than one from

energy use or energy cost has been a welcome change. Energy codes and sustainability rating systems have traditionally used site energy use or Energy Use Intensity (EUI), all of which are easy metrics to grasp and to quantify, but do not capture the full impact that carbon does. Quantifying impact through carbon, not only captures the quantity of energy but also the impact from which that energy came. The fact that 40-50% of the global greenhouse gas emissions emanate from the building industry has become widely accepted by the building industry. The amount of that percentage that is a result of embodied impacts is constantly evolving as our buildings become more operationally efficient, but currently is believed to be 25% of the total. If you look at how a typical project impacts build over time, there is the initial burden of emissions that occur during construction, the embodied impacts, as well as the operational impacts that occur over the life of the building. The operational “curve” representing the buildings impact over the course of its occupation is influenced by how much energy the building consumes over time, where the building’s energy is sourced, and how efficiency of the building throughout it’s life. As the world’s buildings get designed to meet more strict energy code, built with accountability, and operate with cleaner energy sources or through renewables, we will see the embodied carbon impact of 25% get as high as 50% of the total building-generated carbon impact. With fully electrified buildings, powered by clean energy sources and renewables, all

the carbon of our future buildings will come from materials, refurbishment, and commuting. As a result, the area under the curve is getting harder to ignore.

Cumulative Carbon Emissions of a Typical Building

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The two primary recommendations for carbon reduction in construction are simplistically, use less materials, and use less impactful materials. In the context of the building enclosure, the material to which this publication is focused, and the materials that support it have huge targets on their back. As Mic Paterson of the Façade Tectonics Institute speculates, unless the manufacturers or glass and aluminum find

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Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport ©LEO A DALY | Creative Sources Photography / Rion Rizzo

ways to reduce their carbon footprint, increase their performance, and extend their service life, “restrictions on their use are ultimately unavoidable” . Is it heresy to suggest the use of less glass in a glass publication? As a fan of many welldesigned transparent skins, I lament the day when code all but outlaws the design of large expanses of glass. However, we all should embrace the responsibility of creating lowembodied carbon and highly performative buildings and be excited about the design challenges it offers. While some jurisdictions,

like New York City, have been leading the charge of code changes that would limit glass use, most others will be slow to adopt similar goals. The burden falls on us as designers and engineers to lead the way to using less, or should I say emitting less, not through limiting the total area necessarily, but by limiting the quantity and being more creative with the application of its use. PERFORMANCE BASED DESIGN The first method for reducing the quantity of glass used on any given project is to only utilize the amount necessary to meet any

given project’s construction codes. A number of engineering efforts, including structural design and fire design, have increasingly adopted Performance Based Design (PBD). PBD procedures skirt the inefficiencies and design limitations of prescriptive approaches. What this means in regards to glass and glazed enclosure systems, is that we as designers and engineers need to gain a better understanding of the code requirements that drive glass sizing and utilize more sophisticated analysis techniques than what is traditionally used. Furthermore, rather than designing for the worst case wind pressures and applying

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the resulting thickness to the entire project, we need to mandate more sophisticated calculations methods than ASCE7 to determine our components and cladding pressures as to optimize the glazing thicknesses to the specific loads determined at each orientation and each floor of the building. A recent study performed by our team on a new heavily glazed 440 foot tall tower indicated that a 30% reduction of glazing tonnage could be saved if the glass assembly was tailored to the specific loads indicated in the wind tunnel results rather than the worst case pressures determined by ASCE710. This approach is atypical, but if utilized could result in substantially reduced embodied carbon use in buildings with no impact on the occupant experience. ALTERNATIVES TO GLASS A second consideration to using less quantity of glass is to look at alternatives. While no one can discount the benefits of traditional insulated glazing in vertical and overhead applications from a thermal, clarity, aesthetic, and acoustic perspective, in order to reduce the embodied carbon contained in the making of our envelopes, we have to think about alternatives. Furthermore, we have to make informed decisions regarding the use of triple pane glazing as the benefits are minimized when you consider cost payback. In a 2014 article for Building Magazine and Circular Ecology, author Craig Jones outlines a study into the embodied and operational carbon payback of triple pane glazing compared to double pane glazing. His article concludes that regardless of framing type, it would take almost twenty years for triple pane glazing to pay back the additional embodied carbon. Depending on the framing type, the carbon cost payback will never be realized when considering the lifespan of the window itself .

ViewScape™ Mockup

Products such as Heat Mirror® Insulated glazing by Eastman have been commercially available since the early 2000’s. This product is marketed as an alternative to triple pane glazing, offering similar or superior performance while being 30% lower in weight and 33% less in energy use from cradle to grave. While often ignored due to size and coating limitations as well as the lack of competitors, technologies like this are important if our goal is to limit our embodied carbon. If more members of the glass supply chain stepped up to meet the aesthetic challenges raised by designers, the entire industry could build with less of a carbon impact. As our company works on a number of large scale projects containing long span roofs with a need for extensive roof fenestration, we have become well-versed in alternatives to glazing that would allow for greater spans, while increasing the transparency and reducing the structural weight of the fenestrated area. A material that has become increasingly popular in these types of applications is ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE). This lightweight, transparent film can be used in a single layer or inflated multi-layer application to achieve long spans with minimal supporting structure. The hope in using this material is that it could offer a lightweight alternative to glass while still offering the transparent views and high performance, however conventional ETFE has some unavoidable limitations which often result in the return to traditional glazing or even costly roof mechanisms. The limited mechanical strength capacity and flexibility of the material often results in costly and visually obtrusive cable reinforcement. Furthermore, ETFE film, in a single skin or inflated cushion has very limited thermal properties compared to traditional insulated glazing (IG), resulting in the

need to provide fritting to achieve comparable Solar Heat Gain Coefficients to IG. The result of this fritted treatment is substantially compromised clarity, often defeating the purpose of having overhead fenestration. To address these challenges, researchers within Walter P Moore are partnering with MADICO to develop the next generation of ETFE that incorporates higher mechanical strength and increased thermal performance. Designed as a composite film of multiple laminations, ViewScape™, already being considered for large scale projects, will be able to be customized to a specific product and incorporate a number of technologies that will enhance its performance. The first generation of this film will be eight times stronger than conventional ETFE and will incorporate Low-E coatings that will significantly increase the thermal performance without compromising views through the material. Early prototypes are being tested that will incorporate electrochromic and thermochromic technologies that will allow for climate responsive performance, light-emitting diodes (LED’s) and Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) to allow for the material to become a source of light or media, and even technology that allows for solar harnessing. While unlikely to ever replace glazing, the advances in this material will allow films to expand into markets typically reserved for glass and metal. This potential for carbon reduction on projects can not be ignored. In a study performed on a recently completed indoor water park we were involved in, the switch from glazing to ETFE alone resulted in a 48% reduction in CO2 for the enclosure and a 40% reduction of enclosure construction cost. These results do not even include the knock-on benefits to the primary structure. The final realization of the project did not adopt

Comparison of ViewScape™ with 0.3 SHGC to fritted ETFE with SHGCs of 0.47 and 0.41

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Similarly, wood use in curtain walls have been limited to stick-framed feature facades or in the case of the Tower at PNC Plaza in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the interior skin of the double skin façade. Italian façade fabricator GEM srl METAL WOOD & GLASS, has developed a unitized curtain wall system called “WOODY” which utilizes a primarily wood frame that supports insulated glazing secured through a carrier frame to the wood backup. As building codes become more receptive to heavy timber in commercial construction, technologies like this system should be increasingly considered as viable alternatives to the pure aluminum framed curtain walls.

Soundwaves at Gaylord Opryland

Soundwaves LCA Options Analysis

the full savings indicated by the study as the design team and ownership opted for a hybrid approach that maintained insulated glazing for the vertical facades and ETFE for the roofs, proving that there are still intrinsic benefits to glass that the film material cannot yet match. Alternatives to Aluminum Framing In the aforementioned research by Craig Jones, he reveals that the results of his research indicate that the glass frame type is more important than the choice of double versus triple glazing. Over a 20 year timescale, the choice of double vs triple pane becomes almost irrelevant (from an embodied + operational carbon perspective) when comparing the impact of the frame alone. Wood framing, naturally, outperformed uPVC and aluminum framing. He states that it would take 40 years for an aluminum-framed triple pane window to be a lower-carbon option

than a uPVC-framed double glazed window. Similarly it would take 50years for a uPVC framed double pane window to out perform a wood-framed double glazed window. When looking at a traditional curtain wall system from a commercial perspective it can be surmised that the impact on carbon payback through a move from aluminum framing to another material such as wood or fiber reinforced plastic (FRP) would significantly impact the carbon footprint of any given project. PVC, Vinyl and uPVC have been used primarily in the residential market, however uPVC has been seeing increased use in commercial projects demanding high performance, such as those pursuing Passive House certification. While FRP has been used in limited capacity for increased thermal performance in fenestration framing, it’s use as a primary element in curtain wall framing has been non-existent due to fire code limitations and perhaps aesthetics.

Less with More The increasingly stringent energy codes, even those that are introducing backstops to the percentage of vision glazing will force designers to become more creative with their opaque areas, but will likely not lessen the desire for large expanses of vision glazing or the appeal of the sleek glazed skin. The all glass building is not going away anytime soon. The goal however will be how to use Less energy and emit less carbon through the building’s operational life with More glazing. New options for low-E coated glass types are still in development. Companies like AGC-Interpane have even begun to offer customizable low-E coated glass the designer can make specifically for a project to meet desired architectural and performance targets. The conventional 1-inch thick insulated unit has seen some improvements in the past decade that has not changed its overall makeup or it’s general availability. These include technologies such as triple-silver, room-side low-E and electrochromic coatings. The future of energy codes however will likely put additional pressure on glazing manufacturers to find the next generation of commercially available glass technology. While Vacuum Insulated Glazing (VIG) appeared to hold some promise, their size limitations and high cost has prevented penetration into the market. In the meantime, while the technology to limit energy transfer through glazing is making incremental gains in performance, glass suppliers will likely double down on integrating technologies within glazing that will capture and reuse that energy. Technologies such as transparent organic photovoltaic coatings, electrochromic glazing, and glazing with integrated adaptive shading technology will likely become a heavy focus in the near future.

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When it comes to the all glass façade, even if a project met the strict limit on vision glazing we are finding that the spandrel glazing within an aluminum framed system does not have nearly the limited performance we thought it had. New procedures that supplement the NFRC 100 calculation method for determining system U-factors have changed the “edge-ofspandrel” from 2.5-inches previously assumed by NFRC 100 to 6-inches. Often, this doesn’t leave much of that nice center-of-spandrel U-factor area remaining. As this procedure becomes universally adopted, the glazed spandrel will have to be re-tooled. While this doesn’t fall fully on the shoulders of the glazing industry, manufacturers who can offer solutions to this challenge will find themselves in the driver’s seat. Already known for their specialty and oversized glass capabilities, Sedak , has developed a product called Isomax, which incorporates a Vacuum-Insulated-Panel (VIP) within the insulated glass cavity that can achieve a U-factor as low as 0.04 depending on the percentage and buildup of the vision area.

Furthermore, through the use of their oversized units, vision openings can essentially be a void in an otherwise vacuum insulated insulated panel, eliminating the thermally-challenged framing that usually exists at the interface between vision and spandrel.

While many of these technologies are cost prohibitive for most conventional projects and have limited suppliers, they highlight the next-generation of glazing that will have to be adopted by more manufacturers if they are to meet the demands imposed by the ever increasingly stringent energy codes. Design for Adaptability While I was writing this article, I watched Terminator Genysis with my two sons. Don’t judge me, I’m a childhood Terminator fan. In it, an aged model T-800 Terminator Cyborg , played by Arnold Schwarzenegger repeatedly made the comment that he was “old but not obsolete” after experiencing some technical glitches. At the end, spoiler alert, he falls into a vat of liquid metal and emerges as an “upgraded” model. While ridiculous in many ways, if you suspend disbelief completely, you can get excited about the future promise for performance upgrades. Unfortunately, at this time, our collective inability to easily upgrade something as straightforward and static as a curtain wall is one of the major shortcomings of our industry. A shortcoming that will have to be addressed if we are to design buildings that exist through multiple generations of code upgrades, material lifespans, and architectural styles. In a 2019 study entitled Energy Efficiency, the International Energy Agency (IEA) highlighted that 4.5 Trillion US dollars were spent on building construction renovation. USD 139 billion of that amount was dedicated to “energy efficiency” spending in buildings, of which more than 50% was dedicated to the building envelope. This alludes to a few potential takeaways that building envelope upgrades: 1) seen as having the largest

sedak isomax

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Paul Hastings Tower curtain wall replacement

return on investment, 2) are potentially easier and less disruptive to undertake than other building system upgrades, 3) are potentially the most incentivized to be upgraded. While the study didn’t go into detail on what types of envelope systems were upgraded, it did surprise me considering how envelope systems and assembly designs do not easily allow for upgrades or adaptability. In the Façade Tectonics article Beyond Glass, author Mic Paterson states “The most effective measure to reduce lifecycle embodied carbon is extending the service life of a material, component or system, including a building and its facade system. This will bring considerations of durability and adaptability to the forefront as design drivers.” This quote speaks early generation curtain wall systems ’lack of ‘abilities’ -- maintainability, repairability, upgradability and adaptability-- that has compromised durability, resiliency and has left us with a large building stock in need of retrofit without viable options for upgrading resulting in the need for complete removal. Perhaps façade system designers and

2019 Metals in Construction Competition Entry (Studios Architecture and Walter P Moore)

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manufacturers are counting on complete reskins as a form of future job-security, because the systems we install these days are not any more maintainable, repairable, upgradable, or adaptable than those installed 70 years ago. This state of affairs is not limited to enclosures. In a lecture entitled ‘Are Highly Efficient Buildings Sustainable, Andrew Marsh, maker of the Ecotect environmental analysis software since acquired by Autodesk, spoke of his 1969 Land Rover LLE as an analogy of a sustainable vehicle. While not as operationally efficient as a newer hybrid model, he posits that the fact that the vehicle is still running and serving as his primary means of transportation now 51 years after it was built is likely more sustainable than newer models that are fully expected to be out of service and replaced in much less time. His Land Rover’s extended life is in large part due to the ability for it to be maintained easily and inexpensively by its owner . It is inevitable that any building will undergo envelope upgrades, perhaps multiple times in the course of its lifespan, for various reasons. Weather performance, energy performance, and stylistic upgrades are a few of these reasons. A well-designed façade for today’s energy codes or today’s climate may not be sufficient within a decade of its life. New York City’s recently adopted Local Law 97 takes compliance a step further by introducing hefty fines to owners of buildings exceeding a certain size that do not meet the energy use expectations defined by the city. The local law defines maximum energy use criteria that a particular building typology must meet by 2025, but then makes the criteria even more strict by 2030. Owners of existing buildings and developers of new buildings, who plan on owning any particular property for the next ten years will all have to look at design or upgrade their buildings to meet an energy use requirement that is likely above and beyond what the current prescriptive code requirements achieve. Whether it’s mandated by local law, or just acknowledging that one’s building will need to be upgraded at one or more points during it’s lifespan, the need to design façade systems that facilitate performance upgrades that are not only minimally invasive, but also extend the service life and allow for recyclability of the high embodied carbon components used in the making of facades is critical. Mic Paterson’s body of research includes finding ways to make facades more like Andrew Marsh’s 1969 Land 34

Rover or perhaps the Terminator, imbued with the ability for minimally invasive performance upgrades that extend the façade’s useful life so we are not, as he states, building tomorrow’s problems today. If the enclosure systems of the future could be designed as a kit of upgradable parts, maintainable (like the Land Rover), and these parts could be disassembled and have the ability to extend their life beyond the life of the buildings themselves, their impact is reduced significantly. This ability perhaps starts a novel industry where owners contract with enclosure service providers who can easily upgrade, swap, or dismantle enclosure systems based on performance, architectural or tenant goals. This concept was developed by the joint team of Studios Architecture and Walter P Moore for the 2019 Metals In Construction competition. This concept included a novel unitized curtain wall frame that allowed for ease of replacement the internal gaskets while also allowing for the ability to swap out the infill to the frame with a myriad of cassette types that could be supplied by any vendor who utilized the same carrier frame that system supported. The formula for quality, responsible, and sustainable design is constantly evolving. While the opinion on what the metric or the resultant of this formula has evolved as well, the underlying belief is that we as an industry have to be more conscious of the resources we use to construct our buildings and scrutinize not only selected components but also the holistic view of how those constituent parts fit into the system of our planet. Through recent advances in digital technologies, our ability to analyze, assess, and quantify our design decisions is unlike any time in the history of our industry. What we are still lacking however is the understanding and adoption of a holistic approach as well as accurate data on various system comments we use in buildings. In the hands of the designers, LCA assessment tools will empower the industry to make positive change in our resource consumption and environmental impacts regardless of governmental mandate or incentive. Just as operational energy efficiency and occupant wellness became a recent design driver, carbon impact will soon become as big and a potentially more impactful change agent. Acknowledging material and system impact, quantity and adaptability in addition to performance characteristics is a necessary next step for our industry. The good times aren’t over. They are just beginning.

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Erik Verboon Principal Structures Erik Verboon is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Walter P Moore’s New York office. Trained in both architecture and engineering, Erik brings a deep global experience with a focus on the design of complex and high-performance building envelopes for a wide range of building types. Erik also has experience working with a wide variety of façade applications including high-performance, double-skin façades, geometrically complex composite façades, and custom unitized enclosures for both new buildings and existing building retrofits and additions. His experience in digital design, geometric rationalization, and environmental analysis allows him to bring the highest level of value to his clients while also helping designers deliver projects to the highest level of design sophistication while maximizing performance and minimizing cost. Erik’s portfolio expresses both national and international work with extensive experience in the New York market, bringing expertise in buildings old and new, across academic, commercial, and cultural sectors. In addition to Erik’s professional accolades, he teaches enclosure design at a number of leading universities.

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TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

The Future of HighPerformance Facades

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

Sculpting a Good Neighbor: New York’s Solar Carve Tower Jeanne Gang

n the years leading up to the present moment, the architectural design of facades in New York, San Francisco and around the United States has been flourishing while increasingly stringent energy code requirements have been resulting in progressively higher and higher facade performance. We may one day look back and see this period as a golden age of American architecture, where the context of a decade of stable economic growth and the emerging collective understanding of our global impacts on the environment combined with mature design technology tools being used by both designers and manufacturers. The widespread societal and economic impacts of CovID-19 will certainly be an inflection point in this progression. At the time of writing this article, our society has been disrupted on a scale that few had imagined possible, and the future is in question. In a crisis that changes behaviors as fundamental as how we greet one another, it is easy to imagine that the events of the last months will cause a reassessment of priorities. What trends will emerge at the national and global scale? In a moment when so much that was unimaginable has already happened, it is time to reaffirm collective goals for the environment and continue expanding our understanding of how our individual projects fit into the larger whole of our global society.

Photograph by Whitney Starbuck Boykin

IGS TALKS WITH CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

IGS TALKS WITH CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

ince the early days of the modern movement, discussions about glass in architecture have focused on the physical property of transparency and the evolving cultural meanings associated with its use. There’s no doubt that transparency will always be one of the most crucial and wondrous qualities that glass offers architecture, but there’s also no reason that today’s designers should limit themselves to exploring this single attribute. As readers of IGS are well aware, advancements in glass technology have radically expanded the characteristics and capabilities of this material over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries, with emerging developments promising even more. At the same time, we have also arrived at a moment in which the urgent challenges facing our world – from widening inequality to climate change – demand that architecture find new ways of connecting with people and nature for mutual benefit. When we wield glass as a multifaceted material in service of this mission, what new trajectories for glass architecture become possible?

The building seen from the north on the elevated High Line park. Photo (c) Timothy Schenck.

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IGS Magazine’s Lewis Wilson conducts a candid interview with Christopher Johnson AIA LEED AP & Vice President Building Envelope Entuitive

A closer look at the façade of the New Laboratory Building at Rockefeller University’s River Campus

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Engineering Performance we can see intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

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Photograph by Whitney Starbuck Boykin

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

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The Future of HighPerformance Facades

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

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Photograph by Whitney Starbuck Boykin

California and San Francisco have consistently been leaders in driving forward energy efficiency for buildings. California passed its first energy efficiency policy, Title 24, in 1977, which has helped keep California’s energy consumption per resident stable since enactment according to the California Energy Commission, while the rest of the country’s energy consumption per resident has grown by 40%. San Francisco continued the trend of leading on environmental planning by establishing the Commission on San Francisco’s Environment in 1993, which enabled the city and community to pass The Sustainability Plan in 1997. The Sustainability Plan comprehensively addressed the multiple aspects of building a sustainable society, including energy consumption, and contains what I find to be one of the most succinct and complete definitions of energy sustainability: Society will have reached sustainability in energy when it is living on the energy budget set by the natural supply of solar energy (harvested directly as sunlight converted to heat or electricity, or indirectly through wind, water or vegetation converted to fuel). On top of the current California energy code requirements to meet or exceed ASHRAE 90.1-2016, the Sustainability Plan sets goals to exceed those requirements by a further 25% and have on-site generation of renewable energy on every building. 38

While New York started later, it too has become a leader by forging a comprehensive plan to address climate impacts of global warming emissions and align its development with the Paris Agreement of 2015. New York City first established the requirement to have a citywide sustainability plan in 2008, and formed the Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability to guide and direct that effort. In 2014, Local Law 66 was passed, committing the city to reducing citywide emissions by 80% by 2050. In 2016, New York City’s Roadmap to 80 x 50 was published, describing the many aggressive improvements that are needed to achieve the overall goal of emissions reductions. It notes that more than 68% of city greenhouse gas emissions come from the energy used to power, heat and cool buildings, making it clear that improved performance from the façade is key to successfully meeting the 80 x 50 goal. Most recently, the Climate Mobilization Act of 2019 enacted building performance mandates for large buildings (with financial penalties for those that do not comply), importantly focusing attention for the first time in New York on the energy use intensity of a building (EUI) and the resultant greenhouse gas emissions from that energy use. The act further requires building energy efficiency grading and energy labeling, financing for clean energy upgrades, and green roofs, solar panels, or a combination of the two on all new buildings. Combined with the

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NYC Energy Conservation Code adopting the “stretch” provisions of the state energy code including the most recent adoption of ASHRAE 90.1-2016 as baseline performance, the planning from the first half of the decade has rapidly moved into implementation with real impact. Within this context of ever improving performance, the design aspirations of owners and architects has been thriving in both cities. As illustrations of this trend, three recent projects stand out for the combination of design and performance, two in New York City and one in San Francisco. Nike House of Innovation 000 Nike’s new flagship store in New York City completed in November 2018, covers 68,000 square feet over 6 levels in the podium of an existing tower on 5th Avenue. With Nike Retail Design Global as the designers and CallisonRTKL as the architect, the instore experience was designed to highlight innovation, environment, and service. The façade features custom carved and slumped low-iron insulating glass units fabricated by Cricursa in Spain, and unitized and installed as part of a high performance façade system by Seele. Organized around a 5-story atrium and anchored to the roof, ground and the corner staircase, the façade gives the space a dynamic sense of activity and energy. During

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a research and development phase for the innovative glass, preliminary engineering was necessary to confirm both structural and thermal performance of the façade. Technology to slump the curved glass with a low-e coating was not available, or would darken the façade more than acceptable architecturally. The solution was to combine the curved outer-lites with flat inner-lites that could include a high performance low-e coating. The glass is thus able to achieve the thermal performance to meet the New York City Energy Conservation Code, and be the transparent beacon façade that Nike sought for its flagship. 50 Hudson Yards Scheduled for completion in 2022, 50 Hudson Yards is surrounded by the public plaza of the boulevard, the rows of traffic along 34th Street and 10th Avenues, and the other towers of the Hudson Yards neighborhood in New York. Designed by Foster + Partners and developed by Related Companies, the project will be 985 ft tall, will enclose 2.9 million gross square feet of open-floor office space with floor to ceiling glass and up to 60’ wide open column bays,

and is expected to achieved LEED-Gold. The custom high-performance curtain wall features a lively white granite cladding that traces the structural grid of columns and beams from the ground to the top of the tower. At the east and west elevations, the façade projects out from the stone grid, requiring units at the top of the bay to “scoop” back to align with the recessed face of stone, all without impacting performance or the interior floorplan. Occupants enjoy views out of floor to ceiling glass, with just under 60% vision glazing for the project. Given the high level of vision area, it was critical to coordinate accurate solar shading and system u-factors for the curtain wall into the energy model early in the design process. After reviewing many glass samples, Interpane glass with a high performance low-e coating was selected that balanced needs for shading, visible light transmission, and color neutrality. Preliminary thermal modeling was used to confirm u-factor targets were realistic, and then corroborated by full thermal model submissions by the curtain wall contractor, New Hudson Facades.

Rendering of 50 Hudson Yards courtesy of Related-Oxford

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Uber Headquarters Designed by SHoP Architects and being completed in 2020, Uber’s new global headquarters is composed of two iconic buildings situated in San Francisco’s rapidly developing Mission Bay. The highly transparent buildings frame a small park, retain public corridors through the site, and are connected by multiple glass bridges that allow pedestrians to pass between them at various floors. In contrast to a conventional office typology, the two buildings are organized around an immense interior space known as the Commons. Running the entire height and width of one of the facades on each of the buildings, this company-sized gathering space is enclosed by a glass skin with fully operable curtain wall components fabricated by Gartner Permasteelisa that puts San Francisco’s temperate climate to best use. Supported by Vierendeel trusses that span the building’s height, massive pieces of low-iron glass provided by Interpane were designed to

set within operable frames and fold towards the exterior of the building, allowing fresh air in and uninterrupted views out. Because the Commons is only partially conditioned, in a high seismic zone, and designed at a monumental scale, it required close coordination between all parties involved.

Rendering of Uber Headquarters courtesy of SHoP Architects

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he CovID-19 pandemic has disrupted the national and world economies that support and underlay architectural projects like those just mentioned. The contagiousness and asymptomatic presentation of the virus along with the intensity of our global transportation networks has allowed it to spread around the world. Its severity has reminded us that health is primary, that no activity can proceed unaffected when a significant percentage of the population are at risk of illness or death. Few of us could have imagined the effects as the world economy has “paused”. Our governments, healthcare systems, and health research institutes have rapidly transitioned and re-deployed their resources to focus on mitigating the impacts of the wave of infections, improving treatments, and finding a cure. Our schools are teaching using online and remote learning platforms. Our work

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has been categorized as essential and nonessential, and transitioned to remote platforms wherever possible. Demand for crude oil and gasoline plummeted, there are signs that overall electricity demand decreased, and air pollution cleared from the skies of major metropolitan centers around the world. The pandemic’s sudden reduction of global energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions reaffirms our ability to control the inertia of our collective action in a time of crisis. Further, the pandemic’s varied responses from governments and cultures around the world reminds us that global problems and goals such as limiting the spread of a contagious virus, or the use of fossil fuels, require global solutions across multiple sectors and borders. Comprehensive environmental plans like San Francisco’s Sustainability Plan and New York City’s Roadmap to 80 x 50 are clear frameworks for the type of coordinated actions required to successfully achieve these desired outcomes.

As façade designers and builders, we are ready to imagine and realize higher performing building enclosures that achieve the goals of these plans by employing tools and practices centered around performance.

a building owner’s construction decisions are controlled by the economic realities of building that drive towards efficiency, not sustainability or resiliency. We can help however by

Structural and thermal engineering methods have been transformed over the last two decades by performance-based computational modeling facilitating efficient designs. Faster and more detailed finite element analysis lets the designer test more iterations and identify how to best organize and assemble components. Similarly, building energy modeling is now used as a design tool, helping focus design efforts onto the aspects of a project that have the largest environmental impact early in the design process to find achievable and in-budget solutions. The use of performance specifications for procurement of facades is another important driver of innovation. By clearly documenting the design criteria, loads, and conditions under which an architectural design is to perform, a performance specification requires the façade contractor to provide a façade system that meets the specified performance, rather than to provide a particular product. That in turn frees the contractor to propose, test, and utilize novel material and assembly solutions limited only by the evolution of technology and their own ingenuity.

Nike finite element analysis of curved glass.

50 Hudson Yard thermal analysis.

Performance testing and field verification by a building enclosure specialist help identify deficiencies in execution, ensuring that the building enclosure will perform as expected. Building enclosure commissioning first mandated by institutions building their own buildings and then prescribed in voluntary standards like LEED, is now also appearing in energy codes like New York City Energy Conservation Code of 2020. By codifying the practice of verifying performance through review, testing, and inspections, building enclosure commissioning is helping more buildings to meet their performance goals. There are however many aspects of building sustainably that are outside the direct control of designers. As designers, we don’t set the energy conservation code requirements, or building energy use intensity (EUI) targets. And while voluntary standards have helped, it’s clear that intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

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Uber Headquarters performance mockup testing].

embracing the ever changing and improving performance requirements of energy codes, helping our clients understand the important role that the codes play in reaching the overall goals of a sustainable and healthy built environment. And we can provide feedback to the code committees and government advisory groups, providing insights onto how particular aspects of the code are or are not working as intended. We know that the conversion of the electrical grid to renewables is critical to reaching fossil fuel reduction targets at regional, national and global levels. But we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t control how the energy consumed in our projects is generated. We can however support government and private initiatives for research of new renewable energy technologies, and the subsequent rollout of the successful, scalable technologies into diversified electrical grids. Finally, we do not have a full accounting of the climate warming emissions generated to fabricate and transport the materials used to build our projects, or the energy consumed during construction. Programs like the International Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) System initiated in Europe 42

are publishing transparent, verified and comparable information about the life-cycle environmental impact of products. These declarations are an important first step and should continue, but the accounting process is complicated and difficult, it does not include energy used for construction, and the information alone is not sufficient to drive selection towards environmentally friendly products. A simpler method for the designer to take these embodied costs into account would be an economic one, where the environmental cost of any given product or service is accurately priced into the financial cost of a that product or service. With the World Bank reporting that just over 20% of greenhouse gas emissions are covered by either emission pricing or emission trading systems (ETS) like cap-and-trade, we are making progress here too. But the conspicuous absence of the United States, along with Russia, the Middle East, most of Africa, and other developing countries expresses the geo-political difficulties of setting up global regulations. Until internationally coordinated pricing programs are widely adopted, we will be reliant on voluntary and local initiatives to lead. As designers and builders, it is critical that we support and encourage these efforts.

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e are still in an uncertain moment, where the ending of our story is unknown. Basic health safety and the risks of returning to school and work are still questions, leaving the immediate economic future in doubt. And the reasons for which we advocate for environmental causes at times seem conflictualâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;does one prioritize energy conservation or energy independence, environmental protection, social justice, or economic growth? But the reasons for optimism are clear. We have formed underlying institutions to focus political and industry efforts and enact meaningful and effective changes in local codes and regulations. We are re-thinking our environmental situation holistically in frameworks like The Sustainability Plan and The New York City Roadmap to 80 x 50, in ways that combine and align the above motivations rather than letting them remain as oppositions. And we have the tools and practices at our disposition to design and execute higher-performance facades. What remains is a question of desire: what future do we want to build together? Daniel Vos Daniel Vos, AIA, joined Heintges in 2004 and has collaborated on many high-profile building facades in New York and around the world. His expertise in structural glass design and knowledge of building envelope energy performance contribute to the realization of innovative and environmentally responsible building enclosures. Mr. Vos studied architecture in Paris and New York and teaches at Columbia University GSAPP where he is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Architecture.

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Covid-19, Climate, Codes, and Construction: Following Faรงade Trends in NYC and Beyond Tali Mejicovsky, PE, LEED AP, CPEng, Associate Principal, Faรงade Engineering, Arup

hile the world still contends with the largest global pandemic since the Spanish influenza 100 years ago, New York City (NYC) is starting to emerge from lockdown, with restrictions that began in mid-March slowly being lifted over the summer. Many in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry are wondering how our work will resume, what construction might look like post coronavirus and what is its relevancy. It will take some time before these questions can be fully answered, but we can say that construction is indeed essential. As this virus has demonstrated, people will continue to need hospitals, research laboratories and healthcare facilities. Maintaining utilities

Photo: New proposed clinical building at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston / Credit: NBBJ

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including power, water, telecommunications and data centers as well as logistics and transport networks is vital. And as from the dawn of time, human survival relies on consistent access to food, clothing and housing. While the reopening, occupancy, use and development of museums, universities and retail establishments currently deemed nonessential remains to be seen, construction of new essential facilities and refurbishment of existing ones will continue. However, the manner in which we move forward with design post coronavirus remains for us to determine. As our remote working from home on design projects has pushed forward, a portion of the world’s manufacturing has reduced. Global carbon emissions have dropped 5.5% compared to 2019, air pollution has improved, and oil prices have briefly plummeted into negative values. Has the Covid-19 health crisis indirectly jumpstarted the AEC industry into a designing with climate change in mind? And what changes to our design will be provoked by this pandemic?

achieve sustainable design goals, namely, Local Law (LL)97 passed in May 2019, Local Law (LL)32 / New York City Energy Conservation Code (NYCECC) 2020 in effect from May 2020 and the Bird Friendly Materials Bill enacted in January 2020. Globally, buildings generate nearly 40% of annual greenhouse gas emissions due to the use of large amounts of energy for heating, cooling and lighting. This is also due to the use of energy compensating for inefficient, leaky existing buildings that lose heat in the winter and cool air in the summer through old windows or inadequate insulation. In New York City, nearly 1 million buildings generate about 73% of the city’s emissions. NYC’s zoning code sets limits on building heights, density and retail space, aiming to preserve daylight, allow for communal spaces, plazas and parks and promote a healthier city. It dictates where and how new buildings can be constructed within the existing building fabric. As available greenfield construction spaces decline, and code changes focus on sustainability, more emphasis will be placed on the question of how to upgrade, refurbish, reuse and reimagine the existing building stock.

Dovetailing with coronavirus, recent code changes have begun to force the design and construction industry to consider how our work can positively impact climate change; specifically, regarding carbon neutrality, energy efficiency and bird safety in our built environment.

It is estimated that 2/3 of the building area that exists today will still exist in 30 years. Currently, building renovations affect less than 1% of the building stock annually; therefore, a significant increase in the rate of existing building energy efficiency renovations (and the generation and procurement of renewable energy) will be required if NYC is going to reduce emissions.

Several initiatives passed in NYC over the last year look particularly at buildings to help

To address this, last year New York City passed the Climate Mobilization Act known as Local

Law 97. Currently the most ambitious law in the world to tackle emissions from existing buildings, it will impact over 57,000 buildings across the city with the goal of reducing building-based emissions 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050 (compared to a 2005 baseline) through retrofitting. Carbon emissions, or the “carbon footprint” of a building, is measured by totaling the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere during the production of the energy that is consumed by a building to heat, cool, light and power the activities of its occupants. Buildings over 25,000 ft2 must meet annual whole-building carbon intensity limits based on occupancy group and space use. Building owners must submit yearly emissions intensity reports demonstrating compliance or pay substantial fines ($268 per metric ton if emissions exceed the stated limits). Building upon LL97 and emissions reduction is the enactment of LL32 and the adoption of the 2020 NYC Energy Conservation Code. The new ECC requires construction to be built to more stringent energy efficiency standards targeting 20% energy reduction over the previous ECC. With it, NYC is striving towards net-zero energy for all newly constructed buildings by 2030. In the new 2020 NYCECC, building envelopes are limited to perform 15% above the code minimums when energy trade off modeling is used to meet the energy code. U values (measure of thermal transmittance) are more stringent for all fenestration, solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) values for center of glass are limited to 0.36 and detailing will be scrutinized to reduce thermal bridging and eliminate losses. The quantity and assembly of the façade systems will impact the efficiency of the heating, cooling and daylighting systems. From an energy point of view and the fact that NYC is in a heating dominated climate, the U value typically becomes the strongest driver for the design. Adequate light as measured by visible light transmittance (VLT), reducing solar gains and limiting air infiltration are also important.

Figure 1: Carbon emissions intensity limits by building/space use and occupancy group:

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

Glazing assembly and material selection is closely coordinated with our mechanical engineering and whole building energy modeling colleagues to look at building energy

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Photo: Time Life Building – 1271 Ave of the Americas, New York, New York Credit: Google Images

performance in a holistic way for all systems. All energy savings measures are included, namely: HVAC, lighting, occupancy density and schedules, in addition to façade performance. The ECC allows for tradeoffs between systems when the façade is not meeting prescriptive window-to-wall-ratios, U values or SHGC values. By creating a whole building energy model, the building performance can be considered allowing for all systems and positive effects for

Figure 2: Time Life Building – 1271 AoA – Existing and New Walls Sections Credit: Arup

the façade (e.g. free cooling or heating in the shoulder seasons, positive solar heat gain in the winter, etc.) To obtain a building permit, models must demonstrate that the building performs equal or better than the baseline building.

One project example which demonstrated improved energy performance in an existing building is the iconic Time Life Building at 1271 Avenue of the Americas in Rockefeller Center. Completed in 1958 by Harrison, Abramovitz,

Figure 3: Time Life Building – 1271 AoA – Interior Rendering Showing Daylight Penetration Credit: Arup

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Photo: Close up view of a metal panel on the Bloomberg Center. Image Credit: Morphosis.

Photo: Cornell Tech’s Net Zero Energy Bloomberg Center Credit: Iwan Baan

and Harris, the building is 48 stories tall (587 ft) with a cladding area of 456,000 ft2. Working in collaboration with Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, Arup provided engineering services in Façade, Structures, MEP, Sustainability, Acoustics and Energy Modelling. The façade replacement was a significant scope for this project, comprising approximately 433,000 ft2 of a new curtainwall system and 23,000 ft2 of a new storefront system. The vision glass areas of the existing façade limited ingress of daylight and provided narrow views to the exterior. The single glazed façade system and induction units along the perimeter, combined with the un-insulated air supply risers on the building exterior lead to very high operational costs. The retrofit adopted a performance-based design approach to develop a new double-glazed façade that improved the VLT, U value, SHGC and reduced the air infiltration rate, thus minimizing the whole building energy consumption. The existing façade was removed and replaced with a curtain wall, allowing for a continuous, insulated building envelope line. Vision areas were increased for better views and connection with the outside such that daylighting levels increased by 28%. The existing single glazing was replaced with high performing double glazing with a Guardian SNX 62/27 low e coating on surface 2 and stainless steel warm edge spacers to achieve a 42% improvement in the overall U value and a 31% improvement in SHGC. A thermally broken, structurally glazed unitized curtain wall achieved 73% 46

improvement in air tightness. Additionally, the opaque portions of the reclad were insulated to improve the overall U value by 64%. Looking at the façade in conjunction with MEP systems in the whole building energy model, the reclad yielded an energy savings of 30% and energy cost savings of 21% over the existing building. In April 2019, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio made global headlines when he warned that upcoming legislative will “ban the glass and steel skyscrapers that have contributed so much to global warming”. The legislation he was referring to led to the enactment of the 2020 NYCECC. In that speech, the mayor does not “ban” any materials but does mention several buildings as examples of how glasswrapped structures could be made energy efficient. One such example is The Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Center, the first academic building on Cornell Tech’s new 12-acre campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City. For that project, Cornell University, Morphosis and Arup worked together to push the boundaries of what could be achieved for a large-scale net-zero energy building acting as an innovation hub on an academic campus. The Bloomberg Center incorporates sustainability and smart building goals that meet the functional requirements of an advanced academic facility, while creating a building that is low carbon, energy-efficient, healthy and comfortable. Designed in accordance with the LEED NC 2009 rating system, the Center is LEED Platinum certified.

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Arup provided multidisciplinary services including structural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing / fire protection engineering, acoustic and audiovisual consulting, IT and communications consulting, façade engineering, lighting design, security consulting and sustainability consulting for this 160,000 ft2 facility. Energy efficient design elements include a 40,000 ft2 roof-mounted photovoltaic system that is part of a campus-wide array of dedicated solar panels and ground source heat pumps that harness the constant temperature of the earth to both warm and cool the building. The building is also designed to be resilient against potential flood conditions and utilizes a rainwater harvesting system to reduce combined water discharge as well as potable water usage. Building loads were analyzed thoroughly and allowances for lighting and computers carefully planned to ensure MEP design and energy modelling assumptions were not overly conservative. The building facades over the second, third and fourth floors are typically opaque, clad in bronze-colored stainless steel rainscreen panels and topped by a swooping lily pad-shaped roof. The system traps air between the exterior of the building and the elements to help regulate the internal building temperature. The panels feature three-dimensional disks cut into the metal panels with each disk rotated in different directions. The overall eye-catching and unique design is meant to mimic a waterfall that evokes the Cornell campus in Ithaca, with the tilt of the disks catching sunlight in interesting ways. The façade design contributed towards the net zero energy goal by maintaining a very low window to wall ratio, achieving overall U values of 0.06 BTU/hr-ft2-°F with the use of large,

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unitized, insulated opaque façade panels and incorporating double glazing with a Guardian SNX 62/27 low e coating on surface 2, argon filled cavities and warm edge spacers.

Photo: Exterior views of Solar Carve – 3D shaped panel during panel installation Photo Credit: Focchi

The most recent façade related legislation enacted in NYC is the Bird Friendly Materials Bill which aims to reduce the number of birds colliding into buildings. In addition to all-glass buildings requiring large amounts of energy to provide heat, cool, light and power, highly transparent and reflective glass facades are also known to be dangerous to birds. Over the last 40 years, North America has lost 3 billion birds (29% of the avian population) due to climate change, habitat loss, loss of insect prey and other threats. Window collisions are another major threat, with 600 million birds dying each year after crashing into glass surfaces. In NYC alone, collisions with glass affects up to 230,000 birds each year as they pass through the city along the Atlantic Flyway migration route. Besides designing with less glass, birds can be protected by using screens, shutters, and shading devices that obscure the glass while still providing a view, or by using twodimensional patterns that birds perceive as actual barriers. The Bird Friendly Materials Bill defines materials with a maximum threat factor of 25 or below as being “bird friendly” and mandate that these must be used on 90% of a façade up to 75ft above grade. Non-bird friendly materials are limited to 10 ft2 within any 100 ft2 area within this region. This provision applies to both new buildings and renovations of existing buildings

Photo: UV patterned glass. Birds can see into the UV portion of the light spectrum with four types of photoreceptive cones in their eyes (humans have only three). Ornilux Mikado glass, as we see it (left) and as birds see it (right). Credit: Ornilux; Arnold Glas

when the façade is being replaced and is due to take effect in January 2021. Glazing strategies that can be used to mitigate bird collisions include: • Differentiating between texture, color and opacity to fragment reflections and reduce transparency • Utilizing surface treatments, etching, fritting, UV patterning or opaque patterned glass to reduce transparency • Using glass with external reflectivity below 10% • Angling glass from 20° to 40° from vertical to avoid reflections from the sky Connecting the goals of limiting emissions, increasing energy efficiency and keeping birds safe is the Solar Carve project at 40 Tenth Avenue. The 145,500 ft2 ten story office building is located on the Hudson River between the West Side Highway and the High Line at West 14th Street, Arup provided structural and façade engineering services along with acoustic and daylight consulting to the architects, Studio Gang. The building takes it unique form by the allowable zoning line for the envelope and the incident angles of the sun path to carve out surfaces across it’s Southeast and Northwest corners. This allows the High Line access to sunlight, fresh air and river views and results in canted, diamond shaped glazing surrounded by vertical triangulated glass to create threedimensional facets articulating the carved

tower corners. The angled facades also avoid casting glare onto the drivers on the West Side Highway and help to avoid bird strikes. The low e coating for this all-glass building was carefully selected with both a very low SHGC and extremely low external reflectivity. The SHGC serves to both reduce solar gain from the exposed facades and reduce cooling loads. The low external reflectivity helps reduce collisions for birds along the Hudson River migratory route. Early design studies looked at utilizing a more neutral low e coating in conjunction with an exterior frit that would assist in mitigating bird strikes. However, the client decided against exposing frit to the elements and selected a darker, highly efficient triple silver low e coating (appearing grey) to meet a SHGC of 0.23, a VLT of 38% and exterior reflectivity of 8%. The double glazing is comprised of Ipawhite low iron substrates with Interpane Ipasol 38/23 on surface 2, argon filled cavities and Chromatech Ultra warm edge spacers. Solar Carve brings into question how to balance VLT, natural daylighting and electric lighting requirements with exterior views and sustainability. Do neutral low e coatings with high visible light transmittances continue to be aesthetically necessary? Can occupants accept darker all-glass facades with lower VLT that allow a building to be more energy efficient and help protect birds? Can the use of frits be eliminated and substituted with a move to printed interlayers to enable the glass to be recyclable?

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In keeping with United Nations Sustainable Design Guidelines (UN SDGs) for a more sustainable planet and new NYC legislation to reduce carbon emissions, make buildings more energy efficient and keep birds safe, lies a huge opportunity to improve the performance of both our new constructions and existing building stock.

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Photo: Exterior views of Solar Carve – Southeast from West 13th Street Photo Credit: Arup

With the move towards designing net zero energy buildings becoming codified, transforming buildings to ensure sustainable, energy efficient and safer futures in urban landscapes will become the reality.

Tali Mejicovsky Tali Mejicovsky is an Associate Principal at Arup and Façade Skills Leader across four façade groups in the Americas (Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Toronto). She has more than 20 years of façade experience around the globe, having worked on projects in Australia, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and America. With a background in design and structural engineering, Tali has expertise through all stages of design and construction and has presented and published widely on the discipline of façade engineering. Her project typologies have been wide ranging in scale and performance, including humidity sensitive art museums, laboratories and hospitals, retrofits, renovations and expansions of existing historic buildings and large transit hubs to standalone art pieces, handrails and canopies, one-off glazed jewels and temporary structures. With each project, Tali seeks to optimize the façade to dovetail with the architectural design intent, multidisciplinary performance requirements and client objectives.

In tandem with smart material selection, we can also expect the integration of renewable energy sources into more of the façade area. Transparent building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) can now generate 8% power conversation efficiency. For example, a 10,000 ft2 south facing vertical façade in NYC could

generate up to 98,000 kWhr/year. Perovskite cells could potentially reach even higher efficiencies of 17%. If darker glazing generally becomes more accepted, energy generation could increase, thereby contributing to reaching net zero energy targets and helping to keep our avian neighbors flying.

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If the building facades of the future are to address these issues, the trend would be taking us to select glazing with lower SHGC, lower VLT, lower U values and lower exterior reflectivity. Alternatively, trade-offs with higher values could occur with lower window to wall ratios. In these ways, façades can contribute in a more robust way within the whole building energy modelling and offset the energy required of the mechanical and electrical systems. This strategy will apply both to new buildings and to recladding and improving existing buildings stock

Photo: View from interior of Solar Carve – VLT 38% Photo Credit: Timothy Schenck

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Please contact me by Tel to discuss subscription options ¨ Please send me a subscription form by fax or email ¨ (Tick as appropriate) Post this form to: Nick Beaumont, Intelligent Publications Limited, 3rd Floor Omnibus House, 39-41 North Road, London N7 9DP, United Kingdom. Or Telephone: +44 207 607 9907 intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

Sculpting a Good Neighbor: New York’s Solar Carve Tower Jeanne Gang

The building seen from the north on the elevated High Line park. Photo (c) Timothy Schenck.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

The design of Solar Carve (40 Tenth Ave), a commercial tower, offered my team at Studio Gang the opportunity to pursue this question at a prominent and highly unique site in Lower Manhattan. Located at the western edge of the city, its L-shaped parcel is positioned between the clear expanse of the Hudson River and the elevated, linear High Line park, a former railway that is now one of New York’s most popular public green spaces. These unusual spatial conditions set the stage for a building that could provide spectacular, unobstructed views and plentiful natural light and air for its occupants. On the other hand,

it simultaneously threatened to block all of these same benefits for park-goers using the High Line. This is because New York’s zoning regulations maintain sunlight for the public way by requiring that tall buildings be set back from the street as they rise upward – but in this case, it was not the street but the innerblock park that needed protecting. Following the as-of-right massing would have meant creating a tower that stepped up toward the High Line, throwing its green space into shadow for much of the day and obstructing visitors’ view of the river. Rather than accept these conditions, our

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

project team sought and received a zoning variance for a solution that benefits both building users and the public by inverting the prescribed setback. The resulting sleek, sharply faceted tower draws on a range of glass technologies – from low-e coatings to heat strengthening and bird-safe frit – to enhance the environment within and beyond its envelope. At the same time, its gem-like form demonstrates the striking visual potential of treating glass as a sculptural material that can be cut at the building scale. Deferring to the space of the High Line, the design strategically shifts and stacks the tower

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

volume to the west (toward the Hudson) to open up greater access to sunlight and fresh air for park-goers. The incident angles of the sun’s path and other parameters are then used to “carve” the slender building mass at its southeast and northwest corners, allowing additional sunlight, air, and river views for the High Line. A faceted glazing system articulates the curved carve surfaces as a geometric pattern. Iterative design and quantitative daylight analysis, conducted in consultation with Arup, led our team to the final tower form, which allows more than three times as much sunlight per year to reach the High Line compared to a conventionally massed, The building's low-reflectivity glass reduces glare for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians along the West Side Highway. Photo (c) Tom Harris.

The southern carve, seen from the second-floor terrace during construction. Photo (c) Nic Lehoux.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

rectilinear tower. This not only provides a healthier environment for the people who use the elevated green space but for the vegetation and wildlife that live there, as well. Shifting the tower volume to the west also allows for an expansive 10,000 sq ft (929 m2) terrace to be created at level 2 atop the building’s podium. Like the park that it borders, this terrace is designed to support a range of uses and biodiverse plantings that benefit from the sunnier environment. More opportunities for building users to enjoy the outdoors are provided by a shared 8,300 sq ft (771 m2) green roof deck atop the tower and by private corner terraces on most levels that extend beyond the faceted façade. Inside, the ten-story tower’s slender floor plates permit natural light to completely penetrate the office levels. Locating the core off-axis, rather than in the center of the floor plate as is typical, allows for open floors that can flexibly accommodate various uses. The carved areas at the corners are dimensioned and configured to preserve a flexible plan while bringing a bespoke spatial experience

Photo (c) Tom Harris.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

Photo (c) Tom Harris.

A folded paper study model captures the design of the three-dimensional curtain wall units. Photo (c) Studio Gang.

Daylight model (c) Arup.

to the interior, accommodating a range of uses from conference rooms and individual offices to animating an open office layout. To achieve the design, our Studio Gang team worked closely with curtain wall manufacturer and engineer Focchi and structural engineer and façade consultant Arup to design and engineer two major custom curtain wall systems that are attached to the building’s reinforced concrete structure. Both systems are double-glazed and use low-e, low-iron glass manufactured by Interpane. The result is a high-performance façade with very low reflectivity that furthers the design intention to be a good neighbor— reducing energy use as well as allowing for clear views between the Hudson River and the High Line; reducing glare for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians along the adjacent West Side Highway; and decreasing the risk of bird deaths due to collisions with glass they cannot see. The first curtain wall system, used for the majority of the enclosure, employs flat curtain wall units with a standard dimension of approximately 5 feet (1520 mm) wide by 16 feet (4870 mm) high. This is the full floor-to-floor height, and from inside the office floors, the dramatic effect of this large expanse of glass is

heightened by eliminating knee walls to allow for unobstructed views outward. Each doubleglazed unit consists of a heat-strengthened pane on the outside and a tempered, monolithic pane on the inside. The glass used to clad the building’s typical floors (levels 2 through 10) is coated with low-e Interpane Ipasol neutral 38/23, which fulfills the LEED Gold-certified project’s energy performance goals while also reducing glare and improving bird safety as mentioned above. At the ground floor (level 1), where more transparency was desired for the retail spaces on Tenth Avenue, the low-e coated glass used is Interpane Ipasol neutral 70/37. All of the system’s aluminum profiles are powder coated in a custom dark grey, compliant with AAMA 2604 for interior profiles and with AAMA 2605 for the exteriors, to visually thin the mullion width and to harmonize with the color of the High Line’s steel structure. The second glazing system is used to enclose and articulate the “carves” at the building’s

northwest and southeast corners. Its threedimensional, faceted curtain wall units are each made of five double-glazed panels: a central, diamond-shaped panel, which is angled downward at 24 degrees, and four surrounding triangular panels that are perpendicular to the floor slab to achieve traditional stack joints. This assembly is designed to provide multiple benefits. The tilted panels reduce solar heat gain by self-shading, while the total units are sized for efficient transportation via shipping container and truck, and to optimize construction by being easily staged on-site and lifted into place by a crane truck. Each unit has a base of 5 feet x 5 feet (1520 mm x 1520 mm) with a typical height of 16 feet (4870 mm) to span the full floor-to-floor dimension. Both interior and exterior panes are laminated for safety and have the same Interpane Ipasol neutral 38/23 coating as the flat portions of the typical floors. The aluminum profiles are powder coated in the same custom dark grey, completing visual consistency with the rest of the façade.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

The texture created by the carve units is also a bird-safe design element that supplements the low reflectivity of the glass. Its “visual noise” alerts birds to the presence of a solid material, and the downward-angled panels reflect the ground rather than adjacent habitat or the sky above, further deterring collisions. These strategies extend the design’s care for its surrounding environment to encompass wildlife as well as people. Up to 1 billion birds currently die each year in the United States due to striking clear or reflective glass they cannot see. Studio Gang has long been a leader in addressing this issue, working with ornithologists, activists, and organizations such as the New York Audobon Society to develop and advocate for bird-safe strategies that support avian life. With Solar Carve’s proximity to the shoreline on a major migratory pathway, it is particularly critical that its architecture incorporate these measures.

Jeanne Gang American architect Jeanne Gang, FAIA, Intl. FRIBA, is the founding principal and partner of Studio Gang, an architecture and urban design practice headquartered in Chicago with offices in New York, San Francisco, and Paris. Understanding architecture as a practice of relationship building, Jeanne is renowned for projects that connect people with their communities and the natural environment. Her award-winning body of work ranges from cultural centers (Writers Theatre) and civic projects (Chicago River Boathouses) to high-rise towers (Aqua). Current projects include an expansion to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City; the new United States Embassy in Brazil; and the Global Terminal at O’Hare International Airport. The author of three books on architecture, Jeanne is a Professor in Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the only architect named one of TIME magazine’s most influential people of 2019.

A final strategy, smaller in scale but deployed in a key location, is the fritted glass used for the wind screens on the roof terrace. These tempered glass panels improve the comfort of the roof garden’s human users while also looking out for the health and safety of avian visitors. Applied to the glass as a thin film, the frit pattern is only lightly visible to the human eye but is perceived by birds as opaque, alerting them to fly around the screen rather than through it. This is especially important because the roof garden’s native vegetation and elevation makes it an otherwise attractive place for birds to land and forage. As New York continues its latest building boom, Solar Carve provides a site-specific counterpoint to the many object-like buildings that have sprung up along the High Line and elsewhere. Working at multiple scales, and with multiple properties of glass, its architecture demonstrates how density can be added to the city in a sensitive way that helps to enhance its surrounding environment. Respecting and protecting our shared public assets does not have to limit design—it can in fact spur exciting new directions. More thoughts and projects from Jeanne Gang on taking glass architecture “beyond transparent” are included in Studio Gang’s new monograph, Studio Gang: Architecture, out now from Phaidon Press: phaidon.com/studiogang.

Photo (c) Nic Lehoux.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

Nick Leahy

Principal at Perkins Eastman, looks to a positive future in Façade design in times of unparalleled uncertainty. Starts page 8w

Julia Schimmelpenningh

takes us to the epicenter of glass trends in the United States, the BIG Apple. Page 109

Ian Ritchie

authors this issues Glass Word, the final thoughts to a historic special edition of IGS – you better wear sunglasses! Page 118

PLENTY MORE TO COME

You have read articles from some of the foremost experts involved with glass in architectural design and façade engineering projects in the US. In the latter pages of this Special Issue, IGS brings you intelligence from globally respected experts of the industry. From an exclusive interview with Vice President of Entuitive, Christopher Johnson, to the writings of one of Europe’s finest and most prolific architects Ian Ritchie, who has the Glass Word in this issue, the knowledge and dexterity penned in the pages to come can be considered architectural glass gold dust!

This is IGS – Nothing more, nothing less…NOTHING ELSE intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

US Project Portfolio: Transparent architectural structures and the glass specified for each project …and WHY Fabrice Nussbaumer Glas Trösch

In the land of (almost) unlimited architectural possibilities

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

The construction industry in the USA has enjoyed many years of enormous growth. New projects are springing up like mushrooms. They range from spectacular skyscrapers to efficient airports and stateof-the-art stadiums. And, even though it is as yet impossible to quantify the aftereffects of the coronavirus crisis: The USA is the land of (almost) unlimited architectural possibilities. The Glas Trรถsch Group sees this as an opportunity to step up the exploitation of its immense coating technology and glass construction know-how in new projects. The Swiss family-owned company can already point to numerous prominent reference projects, among them the Soldier Field Stadium in Chicago, the Space Needle in Seattle and the New Whitney Museum in the Big Apple. Below we present a number of particularly spectacular glass solutions in greater detail.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

The American Copper Buildings with the linking skybridge: The ensemble was accorded the Best Tall Building - Americas 2018 prize from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). Photo: Glas Trรถsch

The Olympic-size pool in the skybridge of the American Copper Buildings, 100 metres above the ground, provides a spectacular view over the surrounding area. Photo: Glas Trรถsch

T Explode view of the skybridge of the American Copper Buildings. Drawing: SHoP Architects

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

he list of booming cities is topped, as you might expect, by New York. The number of skyscrapers planned there is impressive: More than 20 with heights in excess of 200 metres (700 feet) are currently under construction; dozens more are at the planning stage. Progressive densification means however that the task of finding extensive parcels of land without incurring cost-intensive demolition work is becoming ever more difficult. This has led to a new trend: skybridge structures. By way of example, since 2018 the somewhat linear New York skyline on the bank of the East River has been interrupted by a striking pair of high-rise buildings. The two residential towers of the American Copper buildings are reminiscent of two slightly reclining dancers, linked together

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

for eternity by a glass bridge around 100 metres above the ground. Even by New York standards, this striking building ensemble, designed by SHoP Architects for the developer JDS, is unusual both in terms of its design and the actual materials employed. As a central design element, the skybridge not only has a purely aesthetic function, it is also structurally relevant and in addition, connects the building services of the two towers. The highest bridge in New York Whereas the facade cladding of the 41 and 48-floor skyscrapers is made up of copper panels, the linking bridge is clad entirely in shimmering, metallic finish glass, forming an elegant contrast to the two towers. What is already impressive from the outside is equally as remarkable from within. In the skybridge

which is open to all residents are a spacious lounge, a fitness studio with bar and a hamam. The highlight remains the lap pool, which allows you to swim from one American Copper Building to the other while overlooking the city. Floor to ceiling windows provide uninterrupted views of the East River and Midtown Manhattan skyline. Stringent demands were inevitably made for the glazing supplied by Glas Trรถsch. A double insulating glass was developed for the unusual project in conjunction with McGrory Glass. This glass not only ensures uninterrupted views, but also satisfies the stringent energy requirements. The curtain wall glass facade encloses all three floors of the skybridge and makes for maximum panoramic outlooks. The secret: a shimmering metallic gauze is bonded into the outer

laminated safety glass. This gives the facade an elegant yet unobtrusive sheen. The filigree mesh openings of the gauze allow plenty of daylight into the structure, but also offer basic solar protection. In combination with LUXAR anti-reflective glass from Glas Trรถsch, the pane structure also ensures internal visibility and transparency. It is glare-free, and even more importantly, low in the level of reflectance, even in the dark. The overall reflection value is just two percent, which not only enhances the view but also serves as a protection from bird strikes. The additional coating SILVERSTAR SELEKT meets all the energy requirements and offers optimum solar and heat protection as well as high daylight efficiency. The figures speak for themselves, with a total energy transmittance of 26 percent, a Ug value of 1.1 W/m2K and a light transmittance of 44 percent.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

Lobby work in Chicago Many high-rise buildings are at the planning stage, not just in New York, but also in almost all other major US cities. Even cities that tended to occupy lower places in the highest buildings rankings have big plans: These include Los Angeles, Miami, Seattle, San Francisco as well as the fastest-growing metropolitan region in the USA, Austin, Texas. Occupying top spot in the competition for the most attractive and highest skyscraper is as expected Chicago, well-known for its trailblazing architecture. A showcase project for vertical expansion is the 228 metre high office tower at 150 North Riverside planned by Goettsch Partners and completed in 2017. The skyscraper arose on the bank of the Chicago River at a point where several underground railways intersect, forcing the planners to get by with a restricted footprint. Their approach: extremely compact elevator cores and a complex structure supported by the building core made it possible for the skyscraper not to taper upwards in the conventional way, but rather to become narrower towards the base. As a result, the tower stands on a very small foundation in relation to its overall height and volume. The ground floor of 150 North Riverside accommodates a 30-metre high lobby. As the facade tapers inwards towards the ground, the resulting enlarged space is furnished with a totally transparent curtain wall. Glas Trösch’s antireflective LUXAR coating was employed here, in this case as heat strengthened laminated safety glass. The clear transparency and colour neutrality of this glazing blurs the boundaries between indoors and outdoors and opens up the view of the adjoining buildings and park-like outside space. Even before construction began, the Chicago architects Goettsch Partners were awarded the LEED certificate in gold for their concept. This ranking was assured on account of the building’s high energy efficiency, “green” roofs and high utilisation of daylight. In addition, the building has been accorded numerous awards, including the Award of Excellence of the Council on Tall Buildings & Urban Habitats. The lobby of 150 North Riverside in Chicago: The suspended glass facade lends the entrance area an exceptionally spacious and bright appearance. In the base area of the facade is a multimedia wall around 50 metres in length, used for art presentations. Photo: Sam Rossiter Photography

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

The highly-transparent floor to ceiling glazing creates a smooth transition between inside and outside. Copyright Kevin Chu & Jessica Paul

A new face on New York’s Avenue of the Americas Many US skyscrapers are now getting on in years – not only from an energy perspective, but also in design terms. Against this background, the modernisation market is playing an increasingly important role, also for Glas Trösch. The best example of a successful building refurbishment is 1221 Avenue of the Americas in New York. With its 50 floors, the office tower ranks among the tallest buildings in the city. It forms part of the so-called “XYZ buildings”, designed in the international

1221 Avenue of the Americas in New York: The new entrance stands in contrast to the dark skyscraper. Copyright Kevin Chu & Jessica Paul

style in the 1960s and 70s as an expansion of the Rockefeller Center. However, the former reception area on the basement floor appeared dated and over-bearing: dark red terrazzo, Levanto marble and massive columns were the characteristic features of the lobby. The building owner and architects felt it was important to lift this mood and create a bright and welcoming ambiance. During the sweeping redesign, all materials no longer needed for the new concept were stripped out. The refurbishment involved not

only the ground floor facade, but also the interior. While the fully-glazed frontage opens up new lines of sight, the interior stands out for its reduced colour scheme and use of sophisticated materials such as terrazzo and marble. Gleaming white dominates the interior, a concept enhanced by a dramatic lighting scheme. With its bright and inviting design, the office building’s new lobby creates a smooth transition between inside and outside. To achieve this, 5x2 metre panes of glass were mounted on a slimline post and beam construction over two levels in the form of a curtain wall. Viewed from the front, few of the nine-metre high facade’s constructional elements are discernible. The properties of the glass facade were an essential design aspect in the planning of the lobby. Characteristics such as size, light transmission and colour were crucial in the choice of glass. During the planning phase, a mock-up was built in order to bring the properties of the glass better to life. SILVERSTAR EN2plus from Glas Trösch satisfied the requirements for a high quality glass with the desired characteristics. The high colour rendering index and low reflectance of this insulating glazing in addition to the properties of the highly transparent EUROWHITE NG basic glass contribute to an exceptionally colourneutral appearance. SILVERSTAR EN2plus also offers an efficient and energy-saving solution: a low Ug value of 1.3 W/m²K provides for an effective reduction in heating energy costs.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

Secretive glass facade in the Spymuseum Washington For most architects, cultural buildings rank among their favourite projects. Hardly surprising, since they generally allow planners the greatest scope for creativity and freedom. Compared to skyscrapers however, they are rarely impressive for their height but much more for their unusual shape, fascinating floorplans or perhaps for their out-of-theordinary facades. The last-mentioned also applies to the recently completed Spymuseum in Washington DC, planned by the London architects Rogers Stark Harbour + Partners, whose co-founder Richard Rogers was involved in the renowned Paris museum building, the Centre Pompidou. The Spymuseum is part of the masterplan for the L’Enfant Plaza in the south-west of the US capital and creates a new home for a private collection, formerly housed in a 19th century building. Inspired by espionage technologies,

the complex facade plays with transparency and opacity, with the result that to the outside observer, the activities inside the building appear especially “secretive”. The most striking features are the sloping facades of the exhibition floors on the south and west sides of the building, enclosed in a type of “black box”. This is accentuated by bright red steel beams as well as by a folded glass curtain on the west side. SILVERSTAR SUNSTOP Neutral 70 was used in the curtain wall. The special glazing from Glas Trösch stands out for its low total solar energy transmittance (g-value) of just 50 per cent, effectively preventing undesirable heat build-up with this expansive glazing. Nevertheless, the light transmission is a good 63 per cent and the heat transfer coefficient 1.1 W/m²K which in turn helps thermal protection on cold winter days. Alongside these technical values, it was above all the relatively neutral, light gray colouring that made this glass solution the right choice for the Spymuseum.

The red steel beams in combination with the folded glass curtain lend the Spymuseum in Washington DC a secretive exterior. Photo: JHVEPhoto / littlenySTOCK /Shutterstock.com

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

TRANSPARENT ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURES IN THE USA

Clear internal visibility and transparency for the D&G Store on 5th Avenue thanks to the colour-neutral shop front glazing from Glas Trösch. Photo: Chris-Mueller / littlenySTOCK / Shutterstock.com

Retail glazing in popular shopping streets Colour neutrality is also in particular demand in another quite different glass application area, the retail sector. This segment also ranks among the success stories in almost all major US cities – even though it is currently suffering severe setbacks due to the Coronavirus pandemic. For brand manufacturers in the top locations of cities such as New York, Chicago or Los Angeles the essential motto is: Don’t do things by half-measures. Size matters, and that also increasingly applies to shop front glazing. Here too, Glas Trösch has convincing answers with large pane dimensions as well as with nonreflective and colour-neutral glass solutions. The ideal basis for shop front is the highlytransparent float glass EUROWHITE NG which has a light transmission value of 91 per cent. It thus not only guarantees markedly more light transmission than conventional glasses; it is also characterized by the absence of green hue and thus appears particularly clear and colour-neutral. The neutral appearance is also confirmed by the significantly improved

colour rendering index (Ra), a measure of the glass’s relevant tendency to distort natural colours for the human eye. EUROWHITE’s high colour authenticity enables aesthetically appealing facade design with maximum colour neutrality. Optimum colour neutrality and high transparency is retained even during processing into laminated safety glass (LSG) with large element thicknesses. Moreover, the overall impression on the building remains homogeneous, even when using different glass thicknesses. An example of successful shop window glazing in terms of design and technology: the Dolce & Gabbana Store on New York’s 5th Avenue. Here high-efficiency insulating glasses from Glas Trösch measuring up to nine metres in height were used on the facade. These afford passersby a largely unobstructed and colour-authentic view of the display in the shop window. Similar glazing is currently being installed at 299 Park Avenue. Other projects have already been realised. Among those in Rodeo Drive Los Angeles, Michigan Avenue in Chicago and elsewhere.

Fabrice Nussbaumer Fabrice has been working in the marketing sector for 20 years and has held leading positions in the marketing team of the Glas Trösch Group for ten years. For this, he brought with him an education as a federally certified marketing planner and marketing and sales manager of the HSO Lucerne/St. Gallen in Switzerland. At the Glas Trösch Group, he was responsible for the restructuring of the marketing department and directed it until 2018. During this time he has made a significant contribution to shaping the national and international image of the Swiss familyowned company. Since 2019 Fabrice has been Creative Director of the Glas Trösch Group and in this function he concentrates on the development and implementation of innovative marketing concepts with a focus on international projects.

As a family company with more than 6,000 employees, the Glas Trösch Group has more than 100 years of experience both in the manufacture of glass products and in the development of structural glass components. A strong partner has recently been acquired in the form of BGT Bischoff Glastechnik AG with whom numerous international projects – in the USA among others – have been realised. Glas Trösch is driven to develop solutions that satisfy the most challenging aesthetic and technical demands. The implementation of projects of this type calls for courageous developers and architects. As can be seen from the examples, this is something the land of (almost) unlimited possibilities is also renowned for throughout the world.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

IGS TALKS WITH CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON

IGS Magazine’s Lewis Wilson conducts a candid interview with Christopher Johnson AIA LEED AP & Vice President Building Envelope Entuitive

A closer look at the façade of the New Laboratory Building at Rockefeller University’s River Campus

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

IGS TALKS WITH CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON

Engineering Performance we can see intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

IGS TALKS WITH CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON

IGS: As lead at the New York Office of Entuitive, you are embedded into, arguably, one of the most competitive “architecture markets” in the world. How do you separate yourself from the crowd and stand out in the megapolitan that is the “Big Apple”?

Comcast Innovation and Technology Center (1800 Arch Street) At street level by night, the ground-level façade of 1800 Arch Street, located in Philadelphia, PA, casts an intricate and warm glow of the building interior to the world outside.

CJ: What’s interesting is that the New York market is competitive on so many levels…it’s very large with lots of players, it’s an old market with many long-established relationships and institutions, and it’s an always evolving market, being on the forefront of changes coming from all directions: international relations and global finance, economics, technology, big-city politics, etc. We focus less on explicitly trying to differentiate ourselves and more on identifying what building owners and architects are going to need when it comes to creating the best performing, best looking, and most cost-effective building envelopes. This requires staying on the leading edge of performance analysis (energy, structural, carbon, etc), design optimization, and having one’s finger on the pulse of materials and systems innovations. IGS: One wears a monocle and turtleneck, the other a hardhat and steel-toe boots. While admittedly simplistic, these descriptions illustrate the heart of the chasm between two professions that collaborate to build today’s evermore iconic skylines. As a professional who has blurred the lines between being an architect and an engineer, what are the idiosyncrasies of these two occupations that have contributed to this disparity and how do we bridge the gap? CJ: I think that as the processes of building design and construction continue to get more specialized, the chasm between the two is naturally starting to close, or at least narrow. More architects are seeing the design value in approaching things from an engineering perspective and they are equipped with more digital tools now to facilitate that. On the other side, I get the sense that engineers of all types (structural, material, mechanical, etc) are increasingly appreciating that the best projects result from a shared design goal with the architect, and that it’s no longer enough “just to make the numbers work.” Entuitive’s design staff is comprised of engineers, architects, programmers, material scientists, builders, and more…and lots of folks have switched between some of those disciplines over their careers. We see this as both emblematic of and a necessity 68

to the building design industry moving forward. In fact, we prefer not to refer to ourselves as an engineering company, but rather more broadly as an “engineering performance” company. IGS: In April 2019, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio famously called for a ban on glass skyscrapers as part of the Green New Deal. Could you weigh in on his comments and give our readers your thoughts on this controversial declaration? CJ: I haven’t heard that speech in its entirety, but my best sense (or at least hope) is that this statement was either taken out of context or was just a poor choice of words to express a larger point. For one thing, just because what you see on the outside is glass, doesn’t mean it’s all glass on the inside; in fact, it almost never means this and for several reasons. In any case, glass skyscrapers with yesterday’s technology and performance choices certainly have no place in our future cities…but glass in and of itself is not a bad material, nor is it solely responsible for poorly performing buildings. It’s like the old saying goes: “there is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.” Well, indeed the weather will keep getting

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

A full-scale view of the impressive 1800 Arch Street. Here you can see the full extent of the glass and stainless-steel curtain wall.

IGS TALKS WITH CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON

A close-up look at the glass detailing on 1800 Arch Street.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

IGS TALKS WITH CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON

The Rockefeller University River Campus New Laboratory The New Laboratory Building at Rockefeller University’s River Campus rises passively beyond the East River and above FDR Drive in Manhattan.

Dominion Workplace A rendering of Dominion Workplace in Richmond, VA This project features several glass systems with fin/projections of the curtain wall panels.

The Wharf Parcel 9 A rendering of The Wharf Parcel 9 coming to Washington DC. The glazed enclosure consists of cold-bent curtainwalls, structural glass storefront systems, and curved glass structural balustrades.

worse, and so we must make the best choices in the “clothing” of our buildings. This means using materials intelligently based on science and analysis and is exactly why Entuitive recently formed our Advanced Performance Analysis Group. Overall though, my personal feeling is that we should certainly legislate the level of performance of our buildings, but not the specific design solutions to get there. IGS: Keeping on the track of sustainability in architecture and in the face of global warming and environmental degradation, what role do architects and engineers play in contributing to a sustainable future for generations to come?

CJ: As a company, Entuitive has a broad commitment towards sustainability. We have both internal and external goals toward minimizing our impact on carbon emissions and resource consumption. Relative to the greater built environment, architects and engineers have more power than they think 70

351 Marin Located in Jersey City, New Jersey the residential tower at 351 Marin features masonry, GFRC cladding systems and glazed storefronts at ground and roof levels.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

IGS TALKS WITH CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON

in this regard, and whether they realize it or not, we represent the guiding expertise to do what is necessary. While “the Owner” may make the final decisions and writes the check so to speak, the design team should have the know-how and foresight to create and argue for a sustainable built environment. Who else will do it? IGS: To quote yourself, “Building performance extends far beyond simple efficiency; it has to answer all the right questions, from the visual and spatial details down to the material science.” In your learned opinion, do you see any new materials that are set to disrupt the industry and challenge the status quo of building materiality? CJ: At the moment there are fewer new individual materials that will be disruptive, but certainly there are many new innovative systems and applications that are gaining traction in the industry. Some of these are still hindered by politics (i.e. lobbying), or by the fact that energy is still so cheap in many places, but I do see innovation in a few areas: increasing use of vacuum insulated glass and cladding panels, dynamic glazing systems, and the expanded use of engineered wood in building envelopes. There are also some potentially disruptive technologies and business models related to building envelopes, for example, the 100% recyclable IGU or glazing “leasing” concepts where your windows are simply leased and then upgraded like one might do with solar panels. IGS: With 20/20 vision, what trends in building envelope design do you see taking hold in 2020 and into the future? CJ: Without a doubt, emissions and embodied carbon reduction will (and have actually already started to) become primary design drivers. I also think that in a postpandemic world, building design will evolve to accommodate workplace and lifestyle changes which may affect envelopes in many ways. Finally, my earlier comments on glass notwithstanding, I do think we’ll see a continued steady decline in window-to-wall ratios, that is, fewer fully glazed facades and more opaque wall area on buildings. This will partially be due to higher performance requirements and tighter economic conditions, but there is also a sense that aesthetics are trending away from the era of glazed curtainwalls that we’ve seen over the last 20 years.

Brookfield Place The interior of the stunning Brookfield Place in Calgary.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

IGS TALKS WITH CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON

“Anytime a new technology becomes widespread enough to be called a trend, there is a period where all the results start to look the same. But then people start to recognize that and begin to find ways to innovate and synthesize. The talent of the individual never leaves, it just needs some time to evolve” IGS: As an authority on structural glass and fabrication and having utilized this material over your 20 years in the industry, which project (that you have worked on) stands out above the rest in terms of its innovative use of glass and why? CJ: Honestly, for me, each project has something unique that makes it stand out against the others, so I’m not sure I can call out just one…but the amazing thing is that the glass industry is constantly evolving and for every project there is something new made possible by one of the many great fabricators out there. Whether it be a larger autoclave for bigger laminated elements, or a new method to embed fittings, or new tweaks to a structural interlayer…the speed of continuous innovation is incredible.

Canadian Canoe Museum A rendering of the Canadian Canoe Museum shows an excellent example of insulated structural glass.

The exterior of Calgary’s Brookfield Place all lit up at night. The project features lots of curved glass in what is currently the tallest tower in Calgary.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

IGS TALKS WITH CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON

IGS: Façade planning and design is a complicated process; in an era of digitalization, leveraging technology has allowed us to push beyond previously set boundaries in terms of the complexity of geometric design and optimizing design solutions. What digital technologies have had the most impact on the way we design buildings? CJ: I would say parametric design processes have had the biggest impact on the design side. These processes range from the mundane (automated mullion sizing) to the outrageous (unthinkable form-finding). I would add, though, that digital processes on the fabrication side of things have had perhaps an even larger impact on the industry, both in allowing the realization of more complex design work and also in basic construction efficiency and precision. IGS: AI, robotics, the IoT and digital transformation are all disruptive technologies. There is a danger that if we all use the same design engines, the same drivers, we will all make the same mistakes and buildings will become same old, same old, thereby stifling the talent of the individual. What are your thoughts on this? CJ: One might say that this has already happened, but also has happened before, and will happen again. It happened with 3d

modelling, it happened with BIM/Revit, it happened with CNC, it happened with 3d printing, and so on. Anytime a new technology becomes widespread enough to be called a trend, there is a period where all the results start to look the same. But then people start to recognize that and begin to find ways to innovate and synthesize. The talent of the individual never leaves, it just needs some time to evolve. IGS: Can you introduce us to some of the projects that you are currently working on, and perhaps give us a heads up on some projects in the pipeline that look set to gain traction and change the game in 2020 and beyond?

CJ: We have a couple of unique residential buildings under construction: 351 Marin in Jersey City and The Wharf in Washington DC. There are also a couple of large, very interesting confidential projects in the New York region that will hopefully be released to the public soon. All of these have some different innovations in either curtainwall or cladding technology. We’re really excited to begin work on a couple of projects that will start to utilize more rigorous and complex analysis which will optimize every aspect of building performance from energy, to embodied carbon, to external reflectivity.

IGS: What affects do you see COVID-19 having on the future of architecture and building design? CJ: I touched on this a bit before, but I do think we’ll see a shift in the design of workplaces, retail, and multi-family residential. This could mean anything from increased allowances for personal or individual space, touchless entries or interfaces, or more integrated smart building technologies. IGS: And finally, what are your thoughts about glass as a structural material? Does glass perform enough functions to satisfy your own creative mind? Or is there something you would like glass to do that it currently does not do…to your knowledge? CJ: I do love glass. It’s such an incredible and fascinating material, down to its imperfect molecular structure. There are times when I wish it performed a bit better both structurally and thermally, but, on the other hand, I’m glad that there are no perfect materials.…everything has its inherent weaknesses and flaws and I love the challenge that presents. It makes for richer design and more critical designers.

Christopher Johnson AIA, LEED AP Vice President, Building Envelope Christopher is a Vice President at Entuitive with nearly 20 years of industry experience in building envelope consulting, construction administration, project management and architectural and object design. He has successfully delivered projects in the United States, Middle East and China. He trained as an architect and is a member of the American Institute of Architects. Christopher is experienced in all aspects of façade planning and design—from concept through to construction. He is passionate about leveraging technology to help clients realize projects involving complex geometry and optimizing design solutions. His extensive knowledge of building envelope materials and methodologies for cladding systems spans masonry, curtain wall, metal cladding, precast concrete, composite paneling, skylight systems and roofing. Christopher has also developed a particular focus on structural glass, cable systems and lightweight structures.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

Manhattan West – The Pendry Christoph Timm SKIDMORE, OWINGS & MERRILL June 2020 Corner Photo credit: Photo © SOM

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

anhattan West is one of the largest and most complex developments currently underway in New York City. The project, first conceived in the 1990s, is a sevenmillion-square-foot, mixed-use development above active railroad tracks where minimal buildable land

existed. It is an entirely new neighborhood, bound by Ninth and Tenth Avenues and West 31st and West 33rd Streets, that SOM master planned as part of a larger revitalization of Manhattan’s Far West Side. The master plan calls for six buildings – four designed by SOM – that will bring retail, offices, residences, and hospitality to a previously underdeveloped district.

Aerial Diagram Manhattan West and Surroundings Image credit: Image © SOM

Public space is the heart of the master plan. The buildings are organized around a series of distinct plazas – designed in collaboration with landscape architect James Corner Field Operations – that were enabled by the engineering of a 2.6-acre platform that covers the rail tracks, which connect to Penn Station. The development’s central plaza is lined with a combined 225,000 square feet of retail to activate a vibrant new gathering space for residents, office workers, and travelers from the station. From Ninth Avenue, the public space will form a series of urban corridors along West 31st and West 33rd Streets, and the central plaza will pick up where West 32nd Street – which terminates at Penn Station on Seventh Avenue – left off. Together, these urban connections will help form a new destination at Manhattan West, and create a gateway from Penn Station and Moynihan Train Hall to Hudson Yards. When complete, Manhattan West will be a 24-7 neighborhood with both hospitality and residential components in the 21-story Pendry Hotel and the 62-story Eugene. The boutique hotel – which is currently under construction and comprises 164 guest rooms and suites – is characterized by an elegant, softly curved facade that makes a distinctive addition to the complex.

1 One Manhattan West 2 Two Manhattan West 3 The Pendry 4 The Eugene 5 Five Manhattan West 6 Loft Building 7 Central Plaza

Siteplan Manhattan West Image credit: Image © SOM

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

Overall Concept of The Pendry The Pendry was planned to be one of the smaller buildings in Manhattan West. Because the building would not compete for attention in the skyline, SOM focused on designing the building to be experienced from up close, through its silhouette and careful detailing. For the facade, the hotel features a repetitive expression, while the interior spaces visually connect with the building’s surroundings, such as the Empire State Building, to make guests feel the essence of New York. A bay window design facilitates these interior to exterior connections, and they also allow more natural light to flood the interior than a more typical, angular building would.

Rendering Image credit: Image © SOM | VISUALHOUSE

The bay window concept has been used for centuries. At the end of the 19th century, it was popularized in the United States for high-rise construction; William Le Baron’s Manhattan Building, a tower completed in 1890 in Chicago, is an early example. To this day, the building’s bay windows allow the interior to connect with the outside in a way a flat facade cannot. The concept was perfect for a boutique hotel in Manhattan West. Therefore, SOM developed floorplans around this idea. Because the hotel rooms would be oriented toward the north and the south, the facade expression at each exposure was designed as a series of bay windows, while the east and west exposures remained mostly flat.

Manhattan Building Facade Photo credit: Photo courtesy SOM © Albert Herring

Rendering of Bay Window Interior, The Pendry Photo credit: Photo courtesy SOM © GACHOT

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

This simple and elegant perimeter layout also satisfied the design team’s keen interest in creating a memorable experience at the top of the building – an undulating series of curves in front of the sky canvas that serves as one of the building’s defining architectural features. This top-of-house interest is particularly important for buildings in New York City, where many vertical structures are designed to culminate in a beautiful crown. To accentuate the softly curved glass facade geometry, SOM developed a distinct, horizontal reading of glass bands and spandrel ribbons that alternate and stack on top of each other. To make this happen, it was essential to research and test various glazing and spandrel materials.

The Pendry Crown Photo credit: Photo © SOM

Glass Selection Because both the building massing and the floorplans were already determined, it was apparent that an opacification option for the floor-to-ceiling vision glass was needed to accommodate specific room-layout requirements.

The plan diagram to the right illustrates the program required opacified glass areas that needed to be concealed from the outside to maintain the monolithic look of the building as an object. 1 Elevator Lobby 2 King Guestroom 3 Junior Suite 4 Suite 5 Junior King 6 Flexible Lock-Offs 7 Service Area

7 1

2 2

Opacified Glass Areas on Facade Image credit: Image © SOM | GACHOT

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

But this need was particularly challenging. The team studied the purity of the alternating glass and spandrel ribbons with three general glass design options. The first examination focused on a highly transparent glass option with vertical spandrel shadowboxes at opaque zones. This scheme, however, was too random and disruptive to the overall reading of the building. The second study centered around, a reflective glass coating that would hide opaque zones, but this did not fit with the rest of the design aesthetically, and its ability to curve was limited.

The third idea – a dark, tinted, and 5/16-inch outer glass substrate – proved to be best. This option beautifully hides opaque zones during the day. It also makes the potential jumping of the coating from the #2 surface to #3 surface for convex, concave, and flat glass almost impossible to detect on the building facade from the outside. The facade’s thermal performance at the opacified zones mostly relies on its insulation-filled cavity at the back of the ceramic flood coat’s opaque glass. Because this facade was developed several years ago, however, it is important to note that the glass processing industry has since developed new fabrication technology for online bent curved glass that allows for more flexibility in the location of the coatings, given concave glass geometries (certain more limiting radius restrictions still remain).

Coating Location Diagram Image credit: Image © SOM

Spandrel Material Selection With the selection of the dark tinted glass scheme, SOM focused on designing the spandrel ribbon area. Although it was important to have a contrast between the ribbons’ curves, the team wanted to make sure that there would be no sharp contrast in color. The design team studied potential dark spandrel materials that could accommodate the curving geometry, and, with the help of Fabbrica – the facade contractor – developed a stone spandrel for both its natural beauty and flexibility. The stone, composed of “crystal black” granite, would also make for a more textured, heavier, and opaque contrast with the glass in the vision zone – and exhibit a dynamic appearance through varying lighting conditions. The team also enhanced the granite ribbon, which was created by Lacroix, by articulating the material with recessed surfaces. The result reveals a smoothness and exhibits a rich contrast to the flame-finished general spandrel stone. Stone spandrel texture and reveals Photo credit: Photo © SOM | A. Lacroix Granit

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

Building Geometry Given site constraints, the massing geometry was rationalized with a desire to limit the defining curves to a minimum number of radii for not only design elegance, but also to simplify the construction of the enclosure fabrication. Besides straight line geometry, only three different radii on the entire perimeter define the floorplates.

Geometry rationalization Image credit: Image © SOM

Glass Benchmarking The smallest radius used on the curved curtainwall – with dimensions of four feet and ten inches – proved very tight for the production of the hot bent, insulated glass units (IGU) and the curved aluminum extrusions. For the former, the issue was mostly visual, while the challenge the latter was both visual and performative. All of the curved glass was approved prior to development, with the help of full-size samples featuring all project-specific components, such as spacers, coatings, laminates, ceramic frits, and more. Additionally, with the tight radii in mind during initial design stages, the challenge to the glass bending processor was never a question of whether it could be done, but whether the glass could be made beautifully. A subtle but important difference to point out as well was that the production of hot bent glass is one of the most complicated glass fabrication processes, as it requires a lot of know-how and expertise to make the end product truly outstanding.

Glass make-up benchmarking Photo credit: Photo © SOM | Fabbrica

Aluminum Extrusion Bending For aluminum extrusion bending, there are various techniques available today. But given the tight radii on this project, the manufacturer utilized a specialized curving process for all curved extrusions that required enhanced tolerances with less distortion. In preparation of the actual bending process, the straight aluminum extrusion is first fully encapsulated in an oversized aluminum sacrificial tube, and the remaining voids are filled with a low temperature melting metal alloy. After the standard three rollers bending process, the assembly is submerged into near boiling water and the low temperature infill metal is melted away. The outer sacrificial tube is discarded and the curved aluminum extrusion is sanded down and coated in a finish. As a rule, designers of curtainwalls with curved extrusions need to carefully consider the process’ inherent production tolerances for critical details, such as stack joints, to ensure continuous air and water tightness in the final assembly. Curtain wall stack joint Photo credit: Photo © Front Inc.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

Curtain Wall Engineering The unitized curtain wall’s spandrel, with its stack joint, features a vented cavity behind the stone and a double chicken head locating the air barrier at the very back of the system. An aluminum base trim is then added to the back of the assembly after the finished flooring is installed, and a curtain track assembly is placed at the suspended header. The aluminum curtain wall anchor assembly is recessed into a local anchor pocket in the concrete slab. Intermitted Stabilization Anchors (ISA), for facade maintenance operations, are also added as needed at the horizontal joint above the glass. The ISA’s load path back to the slab is then fairly direct.

Typical Section Detail at Operable Integrated Vent Image credit: Image courtesy SOM © Fabbrica

Typical Plan Detail at Stone Spandrel Image credit: Image courtesy SOM © Fabbrica

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

The vertical mullion is designed as a male-female joint with a traditional American system design. Opacified glass areas are fritted with ceramic on the #3 surface, and the cavity between the back of the glass and the front of the insulation is then vented. Hospitality construction in New York City, as per code, requires projects to meet stringent natural ventilation standards. Parallel, outward opening windows were originally considered to satisfy these code mandates. After initial prototype mock-up testing, however, the design team decided to utilize an operable, awning type window with dimensions of up to six feet and five inches by three feet and six inches. The operable sash is designed to be visually concealed and integrated into the typical mullion dimension to minimize visual impact when seen from the interior as well as from the exterior.

Typical Section Detail at Stone Spandrel Image credit: Image courtesy SOM © Fabbrica

Typical Plan Detail at Glazing Image credit: Image courtesy SOM © Fabbrica

CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

Insolation Studies Keenly aware of insolation issues on other projects with concave facade geometries, SOM and consultant Front Inc. also ran simulations that analyzed the potential focusing of sun rays on adjacent buildings and surfaces. These simulations revealed no significant focusing of light rays throughout the year.

Insolation analysis Image credit: Image ÂŠ Front Inc.

Acoustic Testing The project is located on a block that is zoned with specific Outside Inside Transmission Class (OITC) noise requirements. Therefore, a full scale acoustic testing of three typical curtain wall units was conducted as part of a remedial action plan. Insulated glass make ups comprising, in inches, 5/16 outer lite, 5/8 interstitial space, 1/4 inner lite as well as 5/16 outer lite, 1/2 interstitial space, and 3/8 inner lite, were both tested while structurally glazed to the aluminum framing to substantiate compliance with zoning requirements. The team achieved OITC (ASTM E1332) ratings of 30dB and 32dB for the assembly, for applications on the project at various locations on the facade, in compliance with the remedial action plan.

Acoustic Mock-Up Layout Image credit: Image courtesy SOM ÂŠ Fabbrica

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

Visual Mock-up To confirm typical bay window geometry and advance the enclosure design, the team constructed a full-scale mock-up of one facade bay and hotel room early on in the design phase, with materials simulating the true appearance of the project. With the help of this mock-up, SOM and the developer evaluated different glass make ups, mullion colors, curtain wall unit framing dimensions, and spandrel composition options. This, of course, took a considerable amount of effort, but it was well worth the investment, as it gave all stakeholders assurance that the design was achievable and appropriate.

Performance Mock-up The design team achieved final visual and performance substantiation through another mock-up with standard SOM testing procedures for structural performance, air, and water tightness.

Visual Mock-up interior Photo credit: Photo © SOM Visual Mock-up interior Photo credit: Photo © SOM

Visual Mock-up exterior Photo credit: Photo © SOM

Stone Spandrel Fabrication The stone carving was extremely efficient. A bandsaw was used to cut the stone with a curved geometry after the initial flame finishing – allowing for a minimal waste of material. Finished spandrel stone panels were then inspected and approved in a dry lay before shipment to the curtain wall contractor for installation in the individual curtain wall units.

Spandrel Stone dry lay Photo credit: Photo © SOM | A. Lacroix Granit

Stone processing Photo credit: Photo © SOM | A. Lacroix Granit

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

Curtain Wall Unit Assembly The final unitized curtain wall unit assembly took place at Fabbrica’s facility in Connecticut.

Curtain Wall Installation The modest curtain wall unit sizes were easy to efficiently transport up the building in the exterior hoist car and staging just in time for installation on the tight floorplate. A mini crawler crane from the floors above was used by the crew to install each unit.

Curtain wall installation Photo credit: Photo © SOM

Stone spandrel installation Photo credit: Photo © SOM | Fabbrica

Curtain wall staging Photo credit: Photo © SOM

Curved glass installation Photo credit: Photo © Front Inc.

Curtain wall unit installation Photo credit: Photo © SOM

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

Construction June 2020 Photo credit: Photo © SOM

The Pendry Hotel is expected to be completed in 2021, and construction for the entire Manhattan West Development is anticipated to conclude in 2023 with the completion of 2 Manhattan West. By that time, the development will mark the end of the final chapter in a decades-long effort to transform the Far West Side of Manhattan – and bring a new destination to life that also establishes a vital link between the Midtown business district, the Penn Station complex, the north end of Chelsea, and Hudson Yards.

Christoph Timm Christoph Timm is a Senior Architect with over 20 years of experience in the creative field. During his career Christoph has designed a great variety of projects encompassing products, furniture, street lights, facades and architectural spaces. At SOM, he currently serves as Senior Leader of the Enclosure Group, whose practice is embedded among the various architectural design and engineering studios in the New York office. Most notably Christoph has been responsible for SOM’s podium façade design of 1 World Trade Center. Christoph’s expertise is in building enclosures, both in their aesthetically crafted appearance in varying light conditions as well as performance. Efficiency and appropriate use of materials with a focus on innovation and techniques new to the building process are among the many considerations central in his design process. Outside of SOM Christoph shares his expertise actively at conferences and industry events. He has lectured on design and building performance related topics in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

IGS Magazine Copywriting Service for Architecture, Glass and Facade Engineering Industries IGS has a passion for creative thinking and highquality content that makes a real impact. Our team of journalists and designers have over 30 years’ experience in publishing, writing and editing content specific to architecture, glass and facade engineering. Our aim is to deliver carefully considered, well executed content that builds your brand profile and connects you with your customers. So, if you’re looking for a creative content provider with a powerful injection of creativity to freshen the global face of your company, IGS Copyrighting Service could be just the tonic you need.

The greatest writing is clear and concise, consequently getting your message across effectively is sometimes easier said than done. Our experienced team of in-house journalists and editors raise your profile with thoughtful and intelligent copy that trumpets your story, hitting the right note every time: 1. Whitepapers 2. Case studies 3. Project write-ups 4. Editorials + Advertorials 5. Blogs 6. Press releases

“I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.” – Gustave Flaubert If you can relate to this quote, contact Lewis to find out more: lewis@igsmag.com

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CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

Now Is the Time for Innovation Future-Proofing the Building Industry “The best way to predict the future is to design it.” — Buckminster Fuller

Nicholas Leahy, AIA, LEED AP Co-CEO and Executive Director of Perkins Eastman

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

he architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry is at an inflection point, and how we respond in the next few years will determine how the future plays out for us and for generations to come. COVID-19 turned the world upside down in a matter of weeks, causing the world economy to screech almost to a halt. Twenty years into the 21st century and the building industry invests less than any other sector in research and development (R&D), is generally slow to evolve, and continues operating as if it were still in the 19th century, working in silos that rarely cooperate for the benefit of everyone in fear of losing out to the competition. It’s time for innovation in the AEC industry, time to invest significantly in R&D, and time to leap forward in terms of how we build. The AEC industry needs to use R&D to vault ahead. The AEC industry is the third largest sector of the American economy after government and healthcare. Globally, it is a vast ecosystem and plays an essential role in the social fabric of life. Together, building and construction are responsible for 39% of all global carbon emissions, according to the World Green Building Council. Forecasts are that global construction needs to continue to grow at an accelerated pace to meet the needs as we rapidly urbanize, and it all needs to be built sustainably. Despite the warnings from the scientific community, it has only been in the last decade that the industry has started to respond in a meaningful way to this challenge. We are now at the tipping point, and beginning to feel the impact every day and everywhere. Reimagining how we design and build is an imperative. To be successful, we need to accelerate education, communication, and innovation, including through collaboration across disciplines and sectors. How do we in the building industry respond? Where do go from here? When can we restart? What kind of positive future can we look forward to? How do we adapt? We can and should design responsibly and with purpose for a better future for everybody. Thus far, humans have been so successful, precisely because we can adapt by cooperating and sharing ideas, concepts, and common goals. If the coronavirus pandemic has shown us anything, it is that we are all interconnected and interdependent. We hear a clarion call to rethink, innovate, and reset.

NASA Copyright NASA On 12 September 1962, President John. F Kennedy set in motion America’s bid to be the first to put a human on the moon. It took just 2,503 days from Kennedy’s speech until Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. The successful landing of a man on the moon was an incredible achievement for humankind. The Apollo program is one of the premier examples of human ingenuity and cross-discipline collaborative teamwork: The average age on this team was 27 years old and the computing power involved less than what we now carry around in our pockets. Today, we face the daunting challenge of climate change. How long before we put our collective energies and digital tools to really address it?

OTHER

BUILDING OPERATIONS TRANSPORTATION

23%

GLOBAL CO2 EMISSIONS BY SECTOR

28%

INDUSTRY

20.3% including building finishes, glass, equipment, plastics, rubber, paper & other

CONCRETE, STEEL & ALUMINUM

22.7% including building & infrastructure

Carbon Emissions Copyright Joshua Marz-Perkins Eastman The third largest sector of the American economy after government and healthcare, the AEC industry plays an essential role in the social fabric of life. As such, it has a responsibility to reduce global carbon emissions as it meets the needs of our rapidly urbanized world. intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

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H OW BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING (BIM) is a process of virtual simulation and optimization of a building facility with all its interactions from concept to dismantling or demolition A By No Means Exhaustive List of Activities in Each Phase PROGRAMMING Data Collection Project Planning Organization Market Research Accessibility Regulatory Analysis Envr. Analysis Functional Program Area Estimation Project Budget Procurement Strategy Project Delivery Method Consultant Contracts CONCEPTUAL DESIGN Program Verification Room Data Sheets Site Documentation Photogrammetry Laser Scanning Site Analysis Opps/Constraints Functional Analysis Regulatory Options

Envr. Analysis Baseline Energy Model Certification Strats. Comparative Strats. General Massing Concepts Concept Testing Visualization/Simulation Systems Options Structural/MEP DETAILED DESIGN Representation Rendering/Walk-thru Virtual Reality Physical Models 3D Printing Implementation BIM Execution Plan BIM Object Creation Virtual Programming Parametric Modeling Assemblies Structure MEP

Material Selection Matrix Specifications Sustainability Strat. Energy Modeling ANALYSIS Life Cycle Analysis Energy Source Insulation Values Daylight Reqs. Indoor Air Quality Acoustic Envr. Water Use Embodied Carbon Solar Protect’n Certification Plan Budget Review Detailed Code Analysis Local Energy Laws Project Delivery Plan DBB/CM at Risk/ GMP/IPD/PPP

DOCUMENTATION Representation Rendering/Walk-thru Virtual Reality Physical Models/3D Printing Final Documents Detailed Design Assemblies Structural Design MEP Design AV/IT Design Vertical Transportation Fire Protect’n Systems Specifications Final Material Selection Finishes & Equipment Sustainability Acred. Final Regulatory Doc. Package Project Data

CONSTRUCTION 4D/5D Production Planning Virtual Const. Model Federation Clash Detection Scheduling Phasing Time Lining Permitting Schedule Const. Planning Equipment Delivery On-time Delivery Schedule of Ops. Site Logistics Const. Waste Mgmt. Subcontractor Selection SYSTEMS Prefabrication Strat. Structural Const. MEP Data/AV Vertical Trans. Fire Suppression

PREFABRICATION Data Driven Industry Rapid Prototyping Digital Shop Drawing CNC Fabrication 3D Printing Full-scale Mockups Pre-assembling Testing SIMULATIONS Build Life Cycle Model Envr. Simulation Budget Cntrl. & Analysis Commission Strat. Systems Check-lists Digital as Built Ops. & Maint. Manuals BIM w/ Bldg. Mgmt. OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE Commissioning Ops. Checklist Maint. Pgrm.

Systems Optimization Establish Maint. Pgrm. Life Cycle Systems Replacement Sched. Energy Code Compliance LEARN Develop Post-occup. Evaluation Criteria Collect Data Interview Key Staff Summarize Perf. Criteria List Design Improvem’ts RENOVATE Design Bldg. Flexibility Change in Use Change in Ownership Updated Tenant Fit-outs Major Systems Upgrades REUSE Design for Dismantle Design for Reuse Nondestructive Removal Minimize Waste

BIM Diagram Copyright Joshua Marz-Perkins Eastman The advance of digital technologies and their gradual infiltration into the AEC industry has been incremental. The promise of the intelligent digital prototype, or “digital doppelganger,” is predicated on a more collaborative and holistic understanding of the complete building cycle and should fundamentally shift the industry toward higher performing buildings. This diagram is a summary— perhaps an oversimplification—of activities and phases involved throughout the cycle. 88

intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

CASE STUDIES AND TRENDS GAINING TRACTION

We need to take this opportunity to accelerate innovation towards a better, more equitable and resilient future for everybody. We can either fall back to the old ways and wait for the vaccine and the next crisis, or we can step up to the challenge.

Glass Fabrication Copyright AGNORA Advances in the glass industry, particularly in the use of structural glass, offer a window into how a building material and its use has been developed and transformed through a combination of innovations across disciplines and through research. A technician at AGNORA examines and cleans a 2500lb. multi-laminated glass wall that acts as the structural spine for a feature stair at the Onassis Cultural Center in New York City.

Copyright Paul Rivera Located in New York City’s Times Square, TKTS is the world’s largest publicly accessible structural glass structure—a public space and viewing platform at the heart of one of the world’s most visually dynamic places. The design was the result of a highly collaborative cross-disciplinary process from the early stages through fabrication and installation. The team tested and refined every design innovation and solutions constantly at every stage.

The exciting advances in the glass industry, particularly in the sphere of structural glass, offers a great case study of how a building material and its use has been developed and transformed through a combination of innovations across disciplines and through research. It started with the invention of the float glass process by Sir Alistair Pilkington in the 1950s. Then it developed through innovations in laminations and plastics by material scientists as well as advances in computer programs that enable engineers to predict stress hotspots, and the CNC fabrication machinery that ensures the precise tolerances necessary for these structures. Clearly, this is an oversimplification to illustrate the trajectory of innovation and the impact it can have. Imagine if the AEC industry were to focus on a more whole scale transformation through R&D taking responsibility for our collective actions in terms of its overall impact on the environment. Fortunately, some positive signs appear on the horizon, and we have started to build smarter buildings. Rating systems, such as LEED, BREAM, professional organizations, and updated regulatory and energy codes, have resulted in a more intelligent economic accounting of the impact of the built environment. They have started to steer the industry towards a more responsible future. Technology has also played a significant role in influencing this evolution, presenting opportunities for improved analysis, more precise measurement, more informed decisions, and therefore better performing design. We can simulate and model faster, iterating quickly through potential design solutions, optimizing structure, environmental systems and materials used, which all lead to better performing designs and less waste. We now have a better understanding of the embodied carbon of the materials and processes throughout the building life cycle, and this is critical if we are to offset climate change. Serious research regarding material science is currently being undertaken to study sustainable alternatives that might offset the carbon released into the atmosphere, such

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(IoT), we are edging closer to the “grand vision” of a “digital doppelganger,” a live digital model built up collaboratively across disciplines that encompasses all information and flows within the project and its life cycle. This ideally eliminates or at least reduces risks, pinpoints investments, and optimizes returns. This model would then continue as an essential tool to manage and monitor the building through its life cycles. Denver Airport Authority already works along these lines. Every new project is required to follow strict Building Information Modeling (BIM) protocols and is added into the overall digital airport model upon completion. As coding and artificial intelligence (AI) become more prevalent, and as technologies start to offer ways to ensure that multiple teams’ contributions to the digital model are recorded and recognized, the idea of designing and building a digital version of a project becomes more feasible. Before this workflow can be widely implemented across the industry, however, fundamental changes would be required regarding our current contractual relationships among the various parties involved. We need to think and operate more as partners on a team for the mutual benefit of one another and the project at hand.

Rutgers University-Camden: Nursing and Science Building Copyright Perkins Eastman Rutgers University-Camden: Nursing and Science Building, Southwest façade: These studies illustrate the design team’s exercises to maximize transparency and interior comfort while minimizing solar incidence. The curtain wall utilizes both fully transparent and glazed spandrels in concert with one another. Fully-glazed areas receive full-height vertical fins angled to maximize their impact on interior shading. The fins’ perforation allow filtered views while maintaining their shading benefits. Additionally, high-performance tinted glass was deployed to minimize the impact of glare and solar radiation without compromising overall transparency.

as construction materials derived from plant matter, and aggregate in concrete that can act as a carbon sink. Robots, drones, and 3D printing are gaining ground across the industry from design studios and fabrication plants to the construction site. Large multi- axial robots can now 3D print concrete to very exacting tolerances thereby optimizing material and reducing waste, and it is only a matter of time before their use can be scaled up and appear in some form on construction sites. Robotic exoskeletons, designed to augment construction 90

workers to offset heavy labor, are also becoming more common place. Augmented reality is now playing an increased role in construction logistics and management. Many of these developments offer tremendous promise. The challenge with technology, however, is sorting through the myriad of options to identify the meaningful and useful. As the world becomes increasingly digitized and enhanced with embedded information, and then connected into the Internet of Things,

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How we deliver the projects needs to change. The AEC industry is vast and multifarious, operating at every scale from massive infrastructure to small scale renovations. The appropriate use of technology is a catalyst. Wholesale transformation will be challenging as not everyone can afford to invest in technologies to the same degree. This is also compounded because we, as an industry, invest so little in R&D. Kieran Timberlake’s “Refabricating Architecture,” published in 2003, presented the case for rethinking how we design and build in the 21st (twenty first) century. It was a blueprint for a more integrated team-centered design and build process breaking down the silos between design and construction. We should be heading in that direction and there are a few notable companies that are trying to rethink the process along these lines. Katerra is a construction company whose mission is to transform the construction process wholesale, using technology as the means to do it including by controlling all aspects of the building cycle “end to end”. Katerra

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has assembled a team that can provide the full complement of services required, from designers and engineers, suppliers, fabricators, project management, and construction labor. Last year, I was fortunate enough to visit Bau 2019, Europe’s largest building expo in Munich. What impressed me most about the expo, was not only its massive scale, but the palpable passion about the art and craft of building supported through innovation. It was energizing. The trip ended with a tour of Schüco’s headquarters in Bielefeld, to see its technology and logistics centers. Both were impressive for the firm’s commitment to investment in technology and research throughout its whole ecosystem. Considering design and building in a more holistic way, and understanding the interconnections, interfaces, and synergy throughout any system provides a broader

perspective about where optimization through innovation and collaboration can happen. The innovations in our industry have been made in small steps rather than large leaps, but this pace will need to accelerate if we are to address the challenges forecast for the future. This has become even more critical now with the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exposed the insufficient investment in public infrastructure that supports our cities and communities. We live in an age when we have reached the limits of our environmental resources. We need to get to net zero by 2040. We need to build more efficiently, conserve resources, and design a future that is more equitable and resilient while supporting our social fabric. We can do this by working collaboratively across disciplines and with serious investment in R&D, perhaps from government!

Nick Leahy Nick is co-CEO at Perkins Eastman, a leading global design and architecture firm with offices in 17 locations around the world. Nick designs, manages, and directs the projects for the Civic & Cultural studio at Perkins Eastman, and his portfolio includes projects across several industry sectors and at virtually every scale, from large-scale urban planning to small-scale exhibits across the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Nick’s award-winning projects are distinguished by their critical balance of place, program, and craft and his use of appropriate technology. Key to his design methodology is to investigate each site’s relationship to its environment, history, and its intended use. Nick’s work with allglass structural technology, in particular, has advanced the industry through their innovations. This work prominently includes the design and construction of the groundbreaking TKTS Booth in Times Square, the world’s largest publicly accessible all-glass structural building, among many others.

TKTS Copyright Paul Rivera The red glowing red steps are a landmark synonymous with NYC and, at the time, it pushed the limits of structural glass and became an immediate precedent for a 21st-century public landmark.

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Active and Adaptive

he finalist concept of the Metals in Construction 2020 Design Challenge focuses on reducing effort and resources on building refurbishment whilst still enhancing the façade performance of 63 Madison Avenue in New York – an archetype for US office buildings struggling with high energy demand and low user comfort.

For this purpose “Active and Adaptive” carries the concept of ACT Facade forward which is already known to IGS readers from 2016’s Festo AutomationCenter project report. Goal of the Metals in Construction Design Challenge was to develop visions for transforming the facade of one of Manhattan’s 60-year-old buildings to reduce carbon

emissions and address the city’s Green New Deal - also presenting concepts as role model for broader application. 1. Focusing on what is necessary Following the basics of a circular economy the Active and Adaptive concept aims for reducing construction and demolishing efforts to a reasonable minimum while at the same time

Figure 1: Active and Adaptive refurbishment concept for 63 Madison Avenue

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Figure 2: Shearing Layers of Change

increasing overall building performance and therefore extending the buildings life-span. Regarding the geometry of the building, its surrounding and the plan layout 63 Madison Avenue reaches its potential in terms of space usage. Hence these particular criteria limit the potential in any changes or improvements of the building. Considering the building structure not yet reached its end-of-life an extensive refurbishment that cannot achieve its maximum potential appears inappropriate. Following Frank Duffy’s Shearing Layers of Change (see Figure 2), for 63 Madison Avenue counting 58 years a partial refurbishment that focuses on the energy performance would be the suitable choice in economical and sustainable aspects while remaining current building structure and façade. Hypothetically in 20+ years the service life of the all-over building

structure and envelope will have ended. At this point it would be more suitable to fully refurbish or reconstruct the building with latest state of the art technology also utilizing the saved efforts beforehand. Basis for this concept is the operating principle of the ACT Facade where used room air is sucked through a cavity in between exterior glass layer and an interior sun-shading layer of the façade to extract heat from solar radiation and creating a buffer zone. To enable a simple and cost-effective solution for 63 Madison Avenue and other office buildings solely a specially designed and operated three-part interior venetian blind will be added. With the activation of this inner layer the energy performance of the building by reducing heating and cooling loads and providing sufficient daylight can be improved substantially.

2. ACT Facade The Active Cavity Transition (ACT) Facade is a combination of an external glazing with an internal adaptive layer such as a screen (see Figure 3) which acts as an adequate sunshading against sunlight and glare, which provides adequate conditions for creating a buffering cavity between these two layers, controls heat gains and allows views out. Solar radiation typically causing overheating of the interior space is captured within the cavity between screen and glazing. The solar energy is absorbed on the surface of the screen and emitted in form of long-wave heat. Additionally, as in an exhaust air façade, the used air from the office space is sucked through this cavity by the central HVAC system. Therefore the air is only heated up in the cavity and together with its natural upflow it is sucked out from the top vents (see Figure 4). With this unwanted heating

Figure 3: (right) Horizontal and (left) vertical section for ACT Facade with mullion-integrated ZIP guiding rail for textile sun-shading screen

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Figure 4: Operation mode Active Cavity Transition Facade

up of the indoor space is prevented. In addition the surface of the screen facing the interior has a low emissivity because of its low mass which could even be enhanced by a low-e coating and is cooled by air flow creating lower radiation temperatures to the inside of the building. For this reason, energy consumption is reduced as well by less cooling demand and improved user comfort. Since the screen and exhaust air system can be operated individually, ACT Facade creates a variable g-value (SHGC) according to position of screen and operation of the ventilation system. An optimized operation of the ACT Facade is likely to be controlled by building automation system, nevertheless, it is possible to overwrite manually by the user. Due to the screen installation at the inner side of glazing, the system can be operated regardless of weather conditions like wind and is also less exposed to pollution or damage as other external shading devices.

Figure 5: Summer and Winter operation scenarios

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3. Operation mode of Active and Adaptive concept The refurbishment concept for 63 Madison Avenue aims to improve energy performance and user comfort of the building with little efforts. Thus the operation modes of Active and Adaptive dynamically influence the SHGC (g-value), the U-value as well improve daylight usage by controlled transmission and reflection. The novel interpretation of the ACT Facade using a venetian-blind instead of a textile screen generates therefore several operation scenarios The lamellas of the blind are perforated to enable ventilation for exhaustion and view from the office space while at the same time securing sufficient glare control and temperature buffering within the cavity. Additionally the lamellas are coated differently on both sides: silver for high reflection of sunlight and for redirecting natural light at the top part of the blind and black for better view

through the blind from inside and in winter for better heat absorption preventing major heat loss. The adaptability of the venetian blind allows different façade performance / functions which handle different situations – summer, winter, sunny, cloudy, different in temperature and present of users (see Figure 5). Thus the concept actively and adaptively improves the façade and building performance while causing minimal impact in the building structure and usage. The system is designed as a separated add-on component, which could fit into any type of curtain wall and be adjusted to different façade and building layouts as long as the cavity between glass and venetian blind can be created and exhaust air systems connected to it. This cavity is used as a buffering zone for temperature regulation and protection

throughout the year. For this the basis of the project is the individual operation and layout of the venetian blind in combination with the HVAC system. Its simplicity and low technological demand makes the system easy, inexpensive, and quick in construction. The refurbishment can be done partially, which does not interfere with other areas that are still in use. Moreover the construction only requires access from interior, which reduces complication in the construction especially for a high-rise building. 4. ACT Facade – built and in planning The principle of ACT Facade is not solely a conceptual approach but has been proven within several buildings already in operation and in planning as well as through research. The first ACT Facade has been realized at the Festo AutomationCenter in Esslingen, Germany (see Figure 6). A 67 m high-rise

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meeting the architectural intent of fully glazed high-rise and the companies’ thrive for innovation and energy efficiency. This first ACT Facade is in operation since 2015. The façade performance was verified not only by the user but also ongoing monitoring. This effectiveness and efficiency is also underlined by DGNB (German Sustainable Building Council) platinum certificate for the Festo AutomationCenter. ACT Facade has been implemented successfully for retrofitting as well for EuroTower (see Figure 7) former European Central Bank Headquarter in Frankfurt, Germany. Only the interior shading system had to be exchanged and the air exhaust ducts were extended to reach an upto-date façade system as ACT Facade.

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Besides these built examples further construction projects featuring the ACT Facade in Germany and worldwide are under planning. As for example the Ardex Tower with inclined façade units and two-layered screen system enabling different transmission and view properties (Figure 8), and the Continental Headquarter as the first low-rise building with an ACT Facade, due to more consistent façade design and lower operation and maintenance costs compared to an external sun-shading (Figure 9). 5. ACT Facade testing results For the Festo AutomationCenter as well as Continental Headquarter further qualification of the ACT Facade by verified testing at the

Fraunhofer Research Institute on Building Physics have been conducted. These measurements not only led to optimized solutions and confirmation of its façade performance but also have been used to finetune simulation models for further application. Showcasing that ACT Facade not only is able to reduce the g-value (SHGC) by 50 % but also cooling load for the interior by 25 % compared to non-ventilated standard systems. In addition to project-based testing various general ACT Facade built-ups have been investigated at the Fraunhofer IBP. Inter alia also a venetian blind system as proposed for the Active and Adaptive concepts has been measured and been proven to be as feasible as

a textile screen system. As shown in Figure 10 perforated lamellas have been used to enable an operation mode for suction of exhaust air from interior office space into the façade cavity. Air, surface and exhaust temperatures as well as air flow show comparable results as for the already realized textile screen based ACT Facade solution. This confirms the developed refurbishment concept of Active and Adaptive. 6. ACT Facade vision and potential With new construction projects and architectural façade design intents new demands on the ACT Facade arise. However within this further developments on operation, materiality and components a compromise between view, glare, daylight autonomy and

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Figure 11: (l-r) ACT Facade with ZIP screen; rope guidance; venetian blind; curtain.

Figure 12: (l-r) ACT Facade as solar thermal air collector; with innovative screen material; with included PV-systems; as decentralized unit.

Figure 13: Active and Adaptive / ACT Facade concept for broad application

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solar heat gain has to be found to improve user comfort as well as energy efficiency. Therefore different variations for the screen layer seem possible for the ACT Facade as well as relevant to gain wider acceptance of the system by architects and clients through design and component flexibility. These include screens of various colors and openness factors, with ZIP or rope guidance, as venetian blinds as proposed for the Active and Adaptive concept but also as vertically relocatable curtains (see Figure 11). For future applications of ACT Facade the combination with further technologies is envisioned (see Figure 12). Such as newly developed textiles for the screen including colored low-e coating, integrated PV and / or OPV, adaptive textiles through smart material integration etc. Moreover the whole façade unit can be enriched by using special energy

harvesting technology such as translucent amorphous photovoltaic or PV integrated in the spacer within the exterior glazing – also enabling self-sufficient decentralized ACT Facade units. But ACT Facade itself is already equivalent to a solar thermal air collector, too. This thermal energy can then be used within the HVAC system for heat recovery, lowtemperature heating, preheating for domestic hot water, for de-humidification or even for solar-cooling through adsorption cooling. Undertaken measuring and simulation plus realized and operating buildings show that the Active Cavity Transition (ACT) Facade is capable of creating high values of comfort and energy efficiency, meeting the demand of future building envelopes. In addition, the system is cost-efficient in investment on one hand due to the usage of state-of-the-art components, therefore also executable by various façade contractors. And in operation

on the other hand due to energy and operation efficiency but also due to gain of maximized rentable area compared to e.g. Double-Skin-Facades. Priedemann Facade Experts together with various partners inter alias WAREMA Renkhoff, Schüco and Transsolar conduct further research to evaluate these solutions and optimize the ACT Facade approach. Verifying simulation models accordingly, creating a higher flexibility of the system and its components and enable possible combinations of the system with other technologies. Concluding within the ACT Facade concept lies a wide variety for broad application not only in new construction but also in refurbishment (see Figure 13) as it has also been awarded by the Metals in Construction Jury. Paul-Rouven Denz Paul studied architecture and urban planning at the University of Stuttgart and the E.T.S.A. Madrid with a focus on “resource-efficient construction“ and “building construction”. Mr. Denz has gained a wide range of experience during showcase building and research projects on sustainability in Germany and abroad. At Priedemann Facade-Lab, the competence centre of Priedemann Facade Experts group, Mr. Denz focuses as Head of R&D on research on new façade technologies, materials, systems and planning processes. Since 2017 Paul-Rouven Denz is also a PhD guest researcher at TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, investigating Smart Textile Skin solutions for material and energy efficient building envelopes.

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP Time to adopt faรงade engineering 4.0 and bring welcome relief to points of pain

Faรงade engineering is relatively straightforward on regular developments, but as we move forward those projects are decreasing. Credit: Victor Garcia, Unsplash

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urecon’s Douglas Sum says façade engineering has an opportunity to step into a new and exciting future, but asks: “will the industry embrace the technology and processes needed to bring it to life?” Meg Whitman, the former president and CEO of eBay, once said “the price of inaction is far greater than the cost of a mistake”. It’s a quote that summarises my feelings about façade engineering. Across much of our industry we are still working in the same way we have for years, as if scared of making a mistake by changing or updating. But what’s most frustrating is we have the capability and technology to do things better. By taking a new approach to technology, processes and skillsets we can deliver what I call façade engineering 4.0. What does that mean? Well, to put it in context, I categorize the other phases of our industry’s development like this: • Façade engineering 1.0: hand drafting • Façade engineering 2.0: AutoCAD • Façade engineering 3.0: 3D modelling

The majority of façade engineers are still operating in Façade Engineering 2.0 – designing with CAD. Credit: Adobe Stock

To understand why I believe it’s important to shift to façade engineering 4.0, perhaps we should examine the current points of pain. Almost any architect or contractor will tell you one of the biggest headaches on a development is the façade. And the reason for this is that so much of the work is still done in 2D – with many still using AutoCAD for their design (essentially working in façade engineering 2.0). This is out of sync with the rest of the construction industry. Today, on a development, there will be multiple collaborators working

on the same BIM model to coordinate the design, minus the façade engineers. If you’re thinking this is a missing link, then you’d be right. It means that changes made in the BIM model will not be accommodated in the façade design. This leads to problems down the line for both fabrication and installation of the façade, adding time and expense to the project. Another point of pain centres on the issue of design vs fabrication. Historically, the façade engineer creates the design which is passed to the contractor for specifying, ahead of fabrication and installation. But there is often

In its earliest incarnation, façade engineering began with hand draft. Façade Engineering 1.0 Credit: Adobe Stock

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So many of our colleagues in other parts of the construction process are using BIM for their work, but many in façade engineering have not even taken their work to this stage, Façade Engineering 3.0 Credit: Adobe Stock

a breakdown in communications at this stage. As façade engineers we have our own ideas of what the finished product should look like. From the contractor’s perspective, they want to optimise and re-design it to fit their budget and timeline. Unsurprisingly, this often clashes with the façade engineer’s original vision and while this disagreement is sorted out, time passes and work stands still. Moving to façade engineering 4.0 can remove these points of pain and take our industry forward. There are four key components of this new working method, each of which offers tangible improvements over the way work is currently conducted. The four key areas are: • Digitisation • Optimisation • Visualisation • Collaboration In this article we’ll look at each and review the improvements it offers. Digitisation The digitisation stage involves both shifting to BIM for all elements of design and giving façade engineers a design-to-fabricate role. There are 102

a couple of important advances we achieve with this step. Firstly, when the project reaches the construction stage, we no longer need the contractor to specify the façade based on our design recommendations. Instead, we handle the design and specification at the same time, and these are agreed at an early stage by the client, architect and contractor to avoid roadblocks later in the process. Secondly, the manufacture and installation of façades becomes much easier as we eliminate the errors that creep into this stage as there is no back and forth with designs. Instead we prepare designs in a format that plugs directly into the CNC machines used to manufacture the façade. For the client, there is buy-in at the design stage and once this is agreed we can run comparative models to select the most cost-efficient option. We also cut out the potential for errors by having the design, BIM modelling and fabrication data handled by a single supplier

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with each phase interlinked. This is in contrast with the current system where all three phases are handled independently. Best of all, this new way of working fits perfectly with the trend to ‘design and build’ projects, adding greater speed and transparency to the process. Optimisation A crucial element of optimisation in façade engineering 4.0 is the technology we use. At Aurecon we no longer use AutoCAD or other traditional design technologies for façade design. Instead, we create our own programs and scripts which allows us to start from scratch, looking simply at the concept. We can also interlink the elements together so changes in one part of the design are accommodated

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In Façade Engineering 4.0, using Virtual Reality to review façade designs will promote greater understanding between client, architect, contractor and engineer. Credit: Eddie Kopp, Unsplash

Moving to Façade Engineering 4.0 will allow us to employ the very latest techniques in our work, such as Generative Design. Credit: Adobe Stock

in the specification, manufacturing and installation stages. In addition, optimisation is about harnessing the latest techniques, including Generative Design. This new methodology is already delivering success in other industries, such as aerospace, and we are now harnessing it in our engineering work. After setting parameters inside a program, Generative Design utilises software to run multiple iterations and develop an optimum design. It ensures that every element is sized correctly and there is no wasted material or energy. While the software does the heavy lifting, we can enhance or alter the design by changing parameters within the program.

Visualisation As I said earlier, in façade design much of the visualisations are still happening in 2D, requiring the viewer to bring the design to life in their mind. This makes little sense in today’s age of virtual reality technology. So, in façade engineering 4.0 we want to harness technology to deliver the best possible visualisation. At Aurecon, we use software to render BIM models and present a highly realistic view of a finished design. This goes above what is currently available with BIM because while BIM allows us to understand a project as engineers, it’s only when you render it that you truly appreciate what it will look like once built.

The other great thing about harnessing this technology is how it broadens your audience. So, I can sit here in my office in Dubai, put on my VR gear and connect with colleagues or clients in their VR gear anywhere in the world. We can ‘walk through’ the design, zoom in, zoom out, take pictures etc. Walking through a virtual model allows you to see it differently. You pick up on things you might miss in a 2D drawing or even when looking at a 3D model on a screen. It makes everything more practical and clients get a better understanding of the project while it’s still at the design stage, avoiding any tension later on. This year’s COVID19-related shutdowns really underlined the value of this use of collaborative technology.

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Collaboration While technology is rightly at the heart of today’s collaborative working it’s not the only factor. In Aurecon’s façade engineering 4.0, collaboration is also about the people and process. For us it means having the right mindset and understanding the project not only in our role as consultants, but also from the contractor’s, architect’s or client’s perspective. We want to work with our partners to help them solve their problems. So, we need that understanding, particularly with the contractors and so we’ve made a point of building a team that has experience on the contractor side. All our team members have spent some of their career working for contractors, and personally I have spent over half of my career at the contractor level. To be a successful consultant you have to think about the other stakeholders for your project and understand what is achievable. To me, this is one of the central elements to project success and, of course, to façade engineering 4.0. Modern day master builder With any change in business there can be reluctance to do things differently, and façade engineering 4.0 will be no different. We have to build understanding and gain acceptance from clients, architects and contractors. In a way, façade engineering 4.0 is also a return to an older way of working – the oldest. At the earliest origins of the construction industry there was a master builder, an individual who would manage all aspects of a project. This ensured consistency, coordination and

As facades get more complex, we must embrace new technologies as engineers to enable us to push developments forwards. Credit: Luca Bravo, Unsplash

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Having a defined process step for collaboration in Façade Engineering 4.0, will help speed the process and keep projects on budget. Credit: Windows, Unsplash

efficiency but as projects got more complex, it became increasingly impractical. With façade engineering 4.0 we are going back to that in some ways, because instead of having designers, architects, engineers and contractors at odds with each other, the façade engineer can take on the role of overseeing the entire process. I believe that in future this will pay dividends. It will bring us up-to-date with other design functions and make it easier to interlink the work we do with other areas, such as environmental modelling. Using new tools and technologies will also allow us to take on more complex designs and develop exciting new dynamic façades and other innovations.

The technology and structure are already here to move to façade engineering 4.0. We should know — at Aurecon we have already applied it to a number of our projects. We have the tools, technology and the talent, so there is really no reason for our industry to feel like we can’t advance to this. As Meg Whitman also once said: “you can always go faster than you think you can”.

Douglas Sum Douglas is an Associate and Façade Service Group Leader at Aurecon. Having worked in the Middle East for over 13 years, he is one of the region’s most experienced façade engineers. With over 17 years of global engineering consultancy and contractor experience, Douglas has played major roles in a variety of world-class projects such as Hong Kong Disneyland, Macau City of Dreams, Dubai Metro, Burj Khalifa and The Tower at Dubai Creek.

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U.S. Glass Trends Rely on Multifunctionality Julia Schimmelpenning Industry Technical Leader Eastman Chemical Company

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lass continues to dominate the world of architectural design in the United States, even as external forces such as energy concerns, violent storms, man-made threats and glass breakage must be continually considered. The beauty of glass, with its abilities to let in light and visually connect indoor with outdoor spaces, ensures that glass will always play a significant role in design. Enhancements to glass, including the use of high-performance interlayers and coatings ensure that this favored material continues to have a bright, sunlit future. But as the global economy slows, the future of architectural glass lies in the concept of multi-functionality, or glass that can achieve a number of design objectives in one product.

The glass-sheathed Freedom Tower in New York City symbolizes strength and beauty while high performance interlayers provide safety and security to the laminated glass Photo credit: nycshooter /iStock by Getty Images

New York City can be seen as an epicenter of glass trends in the United States, where both the positive aspects of glass are, at times, in conflict with the realities of external threats. Tougher energy codes, hurricanes, glass fall-out from high-rises, terrorist threats and even bird safety have amplified the need to find creative ways to continue to use glass in buildings. New York often sets the trends for the rest of the country, where similar issues are being addressed. New York is embracing change on many levels, underscoring the need for high performing architectural products that can deliver on multiple levels. The 2020 New York City Energy Conservation Code (NYCECC) went into effect May 12, 2020, affecting all new buildings and alterations and requiring new thresholds for energy conservation.* The New York City Department of Buildings recommended tougher building codes to prevent risk from falling glass in 2019, after several incidents in New York and other large cities raised concerns.** The City has also implemented new measures to protect birds from flying into glass. The measures would require newly constructed or altered buildings to use glass and special treatments to help birds distinguish between glass and clear airspace or fly-throughs. Strategies include solar shading elements, reduced reflectivity, and coatings integrated with interlayers. Following 9-11, stricter New York City building guidelines have helped produce some of the safest buildings in the world, including the glass-sheathed One World 108

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Riverside in Chicago’s famed riverfront defies gravity with its “pencil-to-paper” design while withstanding the city’s winds with the use of Saflex Structural PVB interlayers Photo credit: ©Tom Rossiter Photography

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Trade Center (Freedom Tower) that replaced the Twin Towers. High performance interlayers were used to add safety and security to one of the most visited buildings in the world.

an insulating glass unit to provide strength, impact resistance for hurricane and security applications such as schools and high-risk facilities.

The Trend: Multi-functional Glass When considering how to enhance the performance of glass, few architectural products pack as much power as the simple laminated glass interlayer. Polyvinyl butyral (PVB) interlayer in laminated glass offers a slate of added benefits to glazing, which include safety, security, storm protection, acoustic performance and structural stability. In past decades, advanced interlayer products from companies like Eastman Chemical Company have furthered the science of interlayers moving from conventional to specialty products.

The hygienic aspects of glass and ease and efficiency of cleaning versus more porous façade and wall coverings have also added to the multi-functional intrigue of using glass. The surface of glass has been found easy to clean with germicide and disinfecting solutions with virtually no impact on the durability of the glazing when following manufacturers’ recommended practices.

Many of these advanced interlayers can also be combined into one laminated glass unit or incorporated as one or more lites of

Chicago’s Windy City Benefits from Multi-functional Glass The 150 North Riverside, in Chicago’s famed riverfront, provides insight into how laminated glass technology can be multi-functional. The pencil-shaped building (point down!) seems to defy both gravity and the city’s winds with its nearly invisible eight-story lobby. Noted

Chicago architects Goettsch Partners were called upon to design an office tower that would fit in a prime Chicago riverfront parcel of land so narrow that no one had bothered to consider it for decades. By law, any building was required to be set back from the river for pedestrian access. Chicago’s trains also run through the parcel, further complicating an already perplexing problem. The architect’s response was a unique core-supported structure with a seemingly impossible small footprint at the base of the building. To respect the building’s unusual form, which dramatically cantilevers above the lobby, expansive, ultra clear, non-reflective glass was used to enclose the entire space. There were multiple challenges: the structural span for the glass was 85 feet and required large format glass. A clear invisible appearance with minimal joints, hardware and color shifts was needed, as well as a seamless transition between the lobby wall and the plane of the curtain wall above. Saflex PVB interlayers were used to provide structural strength, acoustical performance and a crystal clear view of Hollywood at the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, California Photo credit: © Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering

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Structural strength was also a major consideration. For the back wall of the lobby, the architects selected Saflex® Structural interlayer. It is designed specifically for applications where increased interlayer rigidity and high glass adhesion are required, as was the case at Riverside. Saflex Structural was able to handle the intense loads on the building while also offering other essential safeguards, including UV screening that protects the lobby’s magnificent art collection, edge stability, clarity and noise abatement. One product was capable of functioning in multiple ways.

sphere. The glass rooftop dome consists of a single-layered, braced steel structure covered in shingled glass panels—two panes per grid. These were manufactured with Saflex Structural interlayers and installed by Permasteelisa North America. Only the inner pane of the shingled glass system is supported by an invisible, custom dead load pin connection, leaving the outer glass pane supported by the interlayer, making a stiff interlayer essential. Due to Saflex Structural’s structural strength, resistance to creep at high temperatures, and rigidity, the engineers found the interlayer met both requirements.

guidelines or building safety codes, multifunctional laminated glass with PVB interlayer, in conventional or specialty form, has adapted to market needs. Meeting building codes, providing strength, sound damping, solar control, visual beauty and impact resistance for safety, security and post breakage performance are all functions attainable in a single glass unit with proper design. The requirements for building facades and glazed openings from large cities to rural housing have evolved. Glass, through the incorporation of multi-functional characteristics, has changed as well, and those needs can be met by using laminated glass.

Hollywood Sees Starlight with Multifunctional Glass Applications Scheduled to open in December of 2020, the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures offers insight into multi-functional glass. The most dramatic part of the brand-new museum—The Sphere—has a glass, rooftop dome, requiring the excellent structural capacity found in Saflex Structural interlayers.

Another important multi-functional attribute relates to aesthetics, which are highly valued in Los Angeles! Since the glass edges are exposed to varying weather conditions, the interlayer helps protect against delamination, preserving the sphere’s beautiful appearance. Low-iron glass without a coating created the final effect. Acoustic and safety benefits are also achieved by the use of one interlayer system.

In a town where glamour and glitz are practically a requirement, the giant glass sphere sparkles appropriately. The museum gives visitors a behind-the-scenes look into how films are made while celebrating the power of the movies. Hollywood superstars Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks helped spearhead the project. And its designer, “starchitect” Renzo Piano, is as well known as many of the actors celebrated inside the museum.

With the collaboration of some of the best architectural and engineering minds from both Europe and America, the motion picture industry will be celebrated for years to come. And for those in the glass industry, the sparkling glass dome will also remain a star.

Julia Schimmelpenningh Architectural Industry Technical Manager for the Advanced Material Interlayers business of Eastman Chemical Company. 30+ years’ experience in lamination and laminated glass applications support. She provides technical product support to glass fabricators, Architects, Designers, Engineers and Specifiers. Her work includes new product development, qualification and commercialization of laminated glazing solutions, regulatory development and industry education and association support. Julia also manages the America’s Customer Applications and Support Laboratory in Springfield, Massachusetts. Julia is a very active and solid contributor in the glazing industry being a member of ANSI, ASTM, CGSB, ISO, GICC, NGA and other organizations. Most recently receiving the highest award given by ASTM International for her contributions to the industry and being designation an Honorary Fellow and the prestigious C.G.Carney Award from the National Glass Association.

German engineers Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering designed a unique “shingle” system to accommodate the complex geometry and high load requirements of the

Packed with Performance While trends come and go, the “trend” of multi-functional glass has long-lasting, impactful staying power. High-performance interlayers and/or the use of special coatings add to the stability, design flexibility and adaptability of architectural glass. Where once there were limitations due to changing energy

“The requirements for building facades and glazed openings from large cities to rural housing have evolved. Glass, through the incorporation of multifunctional characteristics, has changed as well, and those needs can be met by using laminated glass” intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

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On Reflectivity Andreas Bittis Dipl.-Ing. International Market Manager Façade

ow do architects actually show glass in renderings to convince clients of the beauty of their façade design?

On the one hand they may put some pattern, textures or colours on the virtual surface to materialize the invisible glass. On the other hand, they may play with the slightly silver appearance of the “glass” – the reflectivity. But what is reflectivity? What does it stand for? How can we design with it? Just as some light reflects off of the surface of water, some light will always be reflected from every glass surface. A specular reflection from a smooth glass surface is a mirror-like reflection similar to the image of yourself you see reflected in a shop window. The natural reflectivity of glass is dependent on the type of glazing material (substrate), the quality of the glass surface, the presence of coatings, and the

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angle of incidence of the relative amount of light inside to outside or your position towards the glass. Today, most glass manufactured is float glass, which reflects around 8% to the outside for a single, 6 mm pane of clear, uncoated glass. However, the sharper the angle at which the light strikes, the more the light is reflected rather than transmitted or absorbed. This happens with any ordinary flat glass in a window but is even more important to know, if you want to design free forms or parametric shapes: there is no total invisibility in the transparency of glass. The reflectivity of various glass types becomes especially apparent during low light conditions. The surface on the brighter side acts like a mirror because the amount of light passing through the window from the darker side is less than the amount of light being reflected from the lighter side. This effect can be noticed from

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the outside during the day and from the inside during the night. In the past forty years, however, researchers have learned a great deal about the design of coatings that can be applied to glass to preferentially reflect only selected wavelengths of radiant energy that come with the sunlight. Varying the reflectance of far-infrared and nearinfrared energy has formed the basis for highperformance coatings. The first solar coatings by SAINT-GOBAIN were manufactured by an online coating process applying metallic oxides onto the clear glass PLANICLEAR® or the body-tinted PARSOL® (the extra clear DIAMANT® had not been developed at these days). The coating was then fused by pyrolysis which gave it a number of properties like total integration with the glass surface and thus strength and stability over time, so that the coating could be positioned on the exterior side of the outer pane (face 1) of an insulating glass unit (IGU). Thus these coatings

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were highly reflective (due to the metallic oxides) but without any thermal performance forcing the glass processor to integrate a second (low-e) coating in the double glazing unit on face 3 – reducing the amount of daylight coming through the IGU while increasing costs for material and working times.

A certain “silvery appearance” is necessary to reflect specific wavelengths of the sun in order to reduce cooling loads and not to heat up the entire building. At the same time architects and clients demand the “fullest” amount of daylight to reduce artificial lighting not only in winter times. A contradiction in itself?

With the development of the magnetron technology – depositing metallic oxides by magnetically enhanced cathodic sputtering under vacuum conditions onto the glass substrates – the variety of performance potentials (technically speaking solar-factor, light transmission, outer reflectivity, etc.) increased dramatically providing even more aesthetic and thermal options to the different façade and application typologies: Living spaces have other thermal loads to cope with than offices; the south side of a building is different to be dealt with than the north side of a building. This (and a lot more!) needs to be considered choosing the right (reflective) glass for a façade. But still: You can’t have one without the other.

The coating development, of course, occurred in line with the development of the façade itself and even more the complexity of functions the façade increasingly had to integrate. The change from a solid brick wall with a rather small openable wooden window to a glazed building skin with laminated fresh air streams with overlength glass panes up to 18 meters describes this spectacular journey best. It seems that the ultimate wish of the Modern Movement – from Frank Lloyd Wright’s prairie style houses to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building – to bring “healthy daylight into the dark buildings” and thus open the interior to (rural as well as urban) nature finally comes true – without any loss of comfort and

well-being for the users. Basically two concepts of the façade evolved out of this vision: all in one layer vs. stack in different layers – from Box Window to Closed Cavity Façade. Especially the development of the double skin façade made it possible to play with the different appearances of glass: the “core” – the insulating double glazing unit – on the inside and to the outside a single or laminated, silver shimmering “glass curtain”. The beauty here – besides the beneficial technical aspect that such a layering creates also a “natural” thermal stacking: from skin to cloth to façade – lies in the “talkativeness” of the façade, the visible insertion of the building into its natural and urban environment. And depending on the weather and lighting conditions the façade changes in its appearance in its context … it merges into it … it rebels against it … it becomes a theatrical prospect for the surrounding actors. The following three projects show what effects can be created with such slightly reflective and yet transparent glasses in façades.

European Patent Office (EPO), Rijswijk, The Netherlands Atelier Jean Nouvel, Paris, France & Dam & Partners Architecten, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Double-skin façade with an outer skin SECURIT® COOL-LITE® ST BRIGHT SILVER and a double glazing unit CLIMAPLUS® with PLANISTAR® SUN

In line with SAINT-GOBAIN’s pioneering spirit and creative processes to offer performant and beautifully designed materials, the COOL-LITE® ST Bright Silver glazing brings a sense of openness and transparency to the building, symbolizing the EPO’s mission to promote innovation in Europe. The elegant and crystalline building with its reflective silver aesthetic is composed of a double-skin façade. The north-west and south-east façades are paired with two curtain walls 2.5 and 7 meters

apart respectively. In addition to the feeling of openness provided in the interior, the space between the two glass walls creates a climate buffer and contributes to the thermal regulation of the building, allowing for natural ventilation and acoustic performance, and promoting a more sustainable control of energy. The design blends into the natural landscape of Holland, playfully mirroring the sky, land and water, bringing a sense of serenity while it hovers in its context.

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SAINT-GOBAIN Tower, Paris, France Valode & Pistre, Paris, France Double-skin façade with an outer skin SECURIT® COOL-LITE® ST BRIGHT SILVER and an inner skin of a double glazing unit CLIMAPLUS® with PLANITHERM® XN The SAINT-GOBAIN Tower is the new headquarters of the SAINT-GOBAIN Group. The 165-meter-high tower has 44 storeys and 49,000 m² of work space for 2,700 employees. Above the actual office tower rises a multistorey, transparent cube with interior gardens and conference rooms. A smaller glass cube marks the entrance to the tower and to the SAINT-GOBAIN showroom at the ground floor. SAINT-GOBAIN aimed to achieve an exemplary environmental level for its new headquarters, guaranteeing users the highest standard of comfort with low energy consumption. The SAINT-GOBAIN Tower is evoking a crystal, because of its shape and the fact, that the geometrically strictly structured façade is entirely made of glass – with a fine latticework application that winds around the tower like a silver ribbon and conjures up parallelograms on the façade. Naturally SAINT-GOBAIN glass was used for the double façade: COOL-LITE® ST Bright Silver on the outer skin and CLIMAPLUS® PLANITHERM® XN on the inner skin. COOL-LITE® ST Bright Silver was also used for the shell of the two glass cubes. Built with more than 80 innovative products out of the entire product range of SAINT-GOBAIN Group, the tower serves as a visible showcase to the know-how and product diversity of the internationally active manufacturer of building materials. 114

These projects show a kind of “Northern European” way of how to deal with the sun: To get as much as daylight as possible with the utmost kind of thermal protection. In other countries, climatic zones or even architectural cultures this approach is slidely different. Here you want to protect yourself more or less constantly from the sun and the heat providing even under these climatic circumstances the best comfort with as little air-conditioning as possible. Just recently SAINT-GOBAIN delivered glass for some extraordinary projects in Mexico – showing the full capacity of the newly established coater lines there.

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Corporativo Andares, Zapopan, Mexico Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos, Mexico City, Mexico Double glazing unit CLIMAPLUS® COOL-LITE® KS 138 II The 23-storey Corporativo Andares mixeduse office and retail project rises to a height of 140 meters transforming the Guadalajara skyline. The driving concept behind the design is integration with the urban context around the project, which extends and complements the earlier developments through a clear architectural dialogue. The volumes of the three-storey commercial base are displaced to create green terraces, and form a plinth for the office tower, which rises in 6 blocks of irregular height, each separated by a terrace level.

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cause a higher mirror-like effect on the inside. • Energy savings: Because the silver coatings reflect and absorb particular wavelengths of the sun’s rays, reflective glass reduces the amount of solar radiation that enters the building. This can save money in heating and air-conditioning costs. • Comfort: Reflective glass reduces variations in the interior temperature of a building.

Torre Diana, Mexico City, Mexico Colonnier Arquitectos, Mexico City, Mexico Double glazing unit CLIMAPLUS® COOL-LITE® KS 146 II Torre Diana is a 34-storey office and retail building. The tower consists of two commercial floors at ground level, six floors of parking above ground level, sky lobby, 23 office floors, two floors for technical rooms and heliport, while below ground level, the building has seven floors dedicated for parking – in total a built area of 141,288 m². It takes its cues from the Diana fountain in front the building and creates an esthetic that is visually and sculpturally festive and ever changing, the sparkle of a fountain made solid. The faceting of the glass reflects and refracts light and fragments the reflections of surrounding buildings and structures in a playful and surprising manner. From its conceptual design stage, the distinctive pattern of the façade was conceived as a reflective glass skin that reinterprets the movement of water and light.

P1B Hotel, Havana, Cuba Glass Processor – Erdem Kutas, Istanbul, Turkey Façade Builder – Metal Yapi, Istanbul, Turkey General Contractor – Bouygues Batiment Internacional, Paris, France

Still there is the question to be answered: How do architects actually show glass in renderings to convince clients of the beauty of their façade design?

Property Tower Baku, Azerbaijan Architect – Hoffmann Janz, Vienna, Austria Glass Processor – Glassolutions Pietta Glass, Valenii de Munte, Romania Façade Builder – Metal Yapi, Istanbul, Turkey General Contractor – SMTS LLC, Baku, Azerbaijan Szervita Square Office, Budapest, Hungary Architect – Antal Fekete and DVM Group, Budapest, Hungary Glass Processor – Jüllich Glas, Székesfehérvár, Hungary and Glassolutions Glas Döring, Berlin, Germany Façade Builder – Schal-Tech, Budapest, Hungary

The next generation though was reached last year by introducing COOL-LITE® XTREME SILVER II, the first coating “two in one” – highly reflective to the outside (RLe 30%) and extremely thermal performance (Ug 1,0 W/ m²K, g 25%, LT 50%). With the fairly low interior reflection (RLi 18%) COOL-LITE® XTREME SILVER II offers even more very good views to the outside. Right after the launch the first projects had been commissioned … with ongoing success. Here just some current pictures and the people and companies we are proud of working with.

European Spallation Source (ESS), Lund University, Sweden Architect – Henning Larsen, Copenhagen, Denmark with Cobe, Nordhavn, Denmark and SLA Architects, Copenhagen, Denmark Glass Processor – Jüllich Glas, Székesfehérvár, Hungary and Glassolutions Glas Döring, Berlin, Germany Façade Builder – Skonto Plan, Riga, Latvia General Contractor – Skanska Sverige, Stockholm, Sweden Summing it all up, the characteristics of reflectivity and glass are: • Appearance: Reflective glass gives a building a mirror-like appearance without losing transparency. Today’s coatings by SAINT-GOBAIN offer a variety of different reflectivities. • Visibility: Reflective glass still permits you to see through the glass. The reflectivity on the inside is usually not a problem. But low lighting conditions (especially at night) may

SAINT-GOBAIN offers here a free service through GlassPro, an interactive app for iOS, which simulates a realistic image synthesis of different glazing products on façades of buildings. GlassPro enables the user to visualize the rendering of a glazing product under a variety of lighting conditions (overcast or sunny) and several interior design settings (with or without white/gray binds). This is important to finally judge the kind of reflectivity and transparency the façade will later on have in its appearance. Still, GlassPro is intended only as a guide to the user to demonstrate the type of glazing products. If you then need valid images of your façade, please contact your SAINT-GOBAIN architectural consultant for the GlassPro Live service. Using your 3D model, we will create realistic renderings for your façade enabling you and your client to judge faster on pro and cons. We want you to rely on your dreams.

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THE GLASS WORD in his own handwriting

In this Summer 2020 issue of IGS, one of Europeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s finest and most popular architects Ian Ritchie, has the glass word.

Blinded by the light

The dazzling and disturbing glare from glass buildings Stella Maris (part), 2016, Brendan Neiland, photo Hugh Gilbert.

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THE GLASS WORD in his own handwriting

Glare1 Glare is a visual sensation caused by an uncontrolled light far brighter2 than its surroundings creating an excessive range of luminance in the eye’s field, or because there is simply too much light over all. It is divided into two categories: Disability Glare which impairs vision, and Discomfort Glare which is annoying and causes eyestrain. “Light is the opium of the architect and shadow its form.” (Ian Ritchie, 2002) The refraction of light gives the human eye its sense of vision. Light as we use it in architecture is perceived not directly, but through reflecting surfaces. Sunlight allows space and form of architecture to change. Through light and shadow architecture acquires shape and meaning. Light reveals a building’s contours and shadow, its depth. The range of light perception by the human eye3 is from about 0.001 lux - in black space/ night sky - to 100,000 lux - bright sunlight. But eyes need time to adapt4, so sudden glare is potentially dangerous for the aircraft pilot, a vehicle driver at night, the train driver trying to read coloured signals, and for the pedestrian or driver in a city of glass towers.

Architects clearly delight in the play of light and play with light, reflected and refracted, both inside and outside buildings. In large modern cities, characterised by tall buildings with ever more geometrically complex and reflective facades, the interplay of multiple reflection and refraction, light and shadow, from and between buildings, can become as mathematically complex as it is visually beautiful. It is important to remember that members of the public also often find beauty in the reflective facades of urban architecture. Some of the acclaimed artist Brendan Neiland’s work - paintings of reflections in the glass and mirrored architecture of the 21st century city reveals the dynamic of this living, shifting, visual architectural intricacy, a subject that John Cage, writer and composer, also found enchanting. The same light that delights the eye can also blind or burn when concentrated and reflected from highly reflective glass or metal, as Archimedes, who is said to have used parabolic reflectors during the Siege of Syracuse to set fire to approaching Roman ships, was well aware. Architects intoxicated by the visual delight of the shapes and forms they are designing often neglect to consider the potential negative impacts of highly specular facade surfaces, including the reflective coatings used on glass

to reduce solar gain and glare inside buildings by reflecting it as heat and glare into nearby public spaces and buildings. Do architects consider glare and the potentially dangerous and annoying impact that reflected light can have on pedestrians, car drivers, adjacent properties and their occupants when designing buildings wrapped in glass or shiny metal? Over the last thirty-odd years there have been many examples indicating they seldom do. If not, why not? I suspect that most do not bother with such considerations or analysis because there has been no statutory requirement or, for that matter, any common understanding of what amount of candela would define glare, though most would accept that looking into the sun would qualify, or scientific agreement on the amount of difference between a bright light and its surroundings which would constitute glare. Architects do take into consideration the shadows cast by their buildings because of neighbouring properties’ Rights to Light and Sunlight/Daylight criteria, for which most countries have regulations, and because the precisely calculated play of shadow can enhance architectural forms.

Chatter (part), 2014, Brendan Neiland, photo Ian Ritchie

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THE GLASS WORD in his own handwriting

Several high-profile buildings designed by well-known architects during the last decade have caused discomfort and damage due to irradiance and concentrations of thermal and visual glare. Popularly known as ‘fryscrapers’ or ‘death ray buildings’, these buildings caught the imagination of the press and public, creating a growing realisation in the architectural and planning community of the potentially severe consequences of uncontrolled solar reflections from the built environment and of the need to assess and mitigate glare in architectural facades. An example is Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Shortly after opening in 2003, surrounding residents and businesses complained of blinding glare as well as increased indoor temperatures. The surfaces of nearby sidewalks reached up to 60C and visual glare disrupted surrounding traffic Solar path - winter, equinox, summer, Elbephilharmonie, HafenCity, Hamburg, Herzog & de Meuron architects.

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reflects such intense light into the neighbouring Nasher Sculpture Center, designed by Renzo Piano, that within two weeks of installation of the Museum Tower’s mirrored curtain wall, the Nasher’s bamboo plantings were killed off by scorching. The reflections also so altered the precisely calibrated solar conditions within the gallery that artworks were threatened, and the light artist James Turrell requested that the Nasher remove his permanent installation there as it had been “destroyed”.

More and more complex surface geometries in building form and in glass cladding panels.

The Sculpture Center has been left to mitigate the glare with internal blinds, leaving inadequate and unattractive lighting conditions for the art.

Designed by Rafael Vinoly in 2005-6 (at probably the same time as Vdara Hotel), and completed in 2014-15, ‘20 Fenchurch Street’ in London - a.k.a. ‘the Walkie-Talkie’, hit press headlines even before it was completed. The concave/parabolic surface of the facade reflected and concentrated beams of sunlight onto parts of the pavement, which reached temperatures in excess of 100 deg. C. The heat melted plastic parts of a motorist’s parked Jaguar, burnt carpets and melted plastic bottles in nearby shops, and incidentally created daily street theatre as crowds gathered to watch eggs being fried on the sidewalk. Vinoly predicted reflections but - apparently in conversation with the Guardian - said, “There was a lack of tools or software that could be used to analyse the problem accurately.”

intersections. Officials at Gehry’s firm insisted that they had taken possible glare into account, but that curved panels were erected at slightly different angles than called for in their design. Gehry did not seem to have remembered that his design for the Weisman Art Museum (1993) on the Minnesota University campus was criticised for the glare it created for drivers facing its west façade when crossing the Washington Avenue Bridge.

In 2010 it was discovered that the reflective surface and concave design of the Vdara Hotel in Las Vegas, by Rafael Vinoly, which had opened the year before, could act as a collecting mirror which focussed the sun’s rays onto the pool deck below, creating temperatures high enough to scorch hair and burn skin. In Dallas, the 42-story Museum Tower, designed by Scott Johnson and completed in 2013,

Renzo Piano’s design of the elegant ‘Shard’ in London, which opened in 2013, was beset by numerous problems of reflection, inside and out, both during daylight hours and at night. Reflections from the facade dazzled train drivers on the south-eastern train tracks leading to the London Bridge Terminal. Internally, embarrassed visitors complained that reflective glass in the loos bounced reflections off ceiling and walls and into and out of other cubicles. At night, guests of the Shard’s Shangri-La Hotel were able to see into each others’ rooms when glass panels protruding from the building’s corners acted as mirrors once internal lights were switched on at night. Visual (not thermal) glare is not restricted to daylight. London’s Crossrail has lodged a formal objection against the proposed MSG

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Sphere in Stratford, east London, warning that giant LED advertising screens on the 90m-tall entertainment venue would compromise safety by impairing train drivers’ ability to pick out signals vital for running high speed trains on a complex part of the network. It is feared the effect, called masking, would occur because the luminance of the glaring LED screens behind signals at the side of the tracks would be several orders of magnitude greater than the luminance of the signals. Whereas there is still no internationally accepted methodology to demonstrate glare from reflective facades, methods exist which can be used to estimate the sensation of glare to which passing motorists and pedestrians would be subject, such as the Hassall method as described in his book Reflectivity5. When designing for network Rail 20 years ago, my practice was made fully aware of the dangers of glare for train drivers, and we were obliged to demonstrate that solar reflections would not diminish a driver’s ability to see the colour of signals.

View of the Shard from train drivers cabin arriving at London Bridge Station, glare lasting about 20 mins each day. Photo railwayeye.blogspot.com

Accurately calculating glare is still problematic, although David Hassall’s book Reflectivity was published in 1991 with glare templates. The first glare-related legislation, one suspects because of that publication and lobbying, was adopted by Sydney City Council in 1992: ‘Veiling luminance’ suggested a maximum reflected solar glare of 500 candelas (cd) /m2 on vehicle drivers. Later, the same council limited the exterior surface reflectivity of a building to 20%, specifying that all materials including window glass will have a reflectivity below 20%. Singapore and Rotterdam have adopted similar legislation. The City of London brought in a Planning Advice Note on the subject in 2017, with reference to a BRE Information Paper IP 3/87 ‘Solar dazzle reflected from sloping glazed facades’ (IHS BRE Press, Bracknell, 1987) on how to carry out the calculations. Obviously glare should be considered when contemplating the massing of a building or a larger development. This requires evaluating the geometries and surfaces of neighbouring buildings with specular facades, potential secondary and tertiary reflections, the Earth’s movement in relation to the sun, local topography, viewing points, and types of public and transport spaces.

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(top and bottom). Softened west light reflective qualities of the ribbed cast glass of the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, London, 2014, ©Ian Ritchie Architects.

This brings immediate awareness of the basic laws of optical physics: angle of incidence equals angle of reflection, and the trajectory of nature’s own laser - the sun. Such calculations, including sciagraphy used to determine the perspective projection of shadows suggest immediately that a concave surface will focus light, and a convex surface will scatter it, though still potentially create moments of glare. During the design process of any structure it would seem sensible to avoid surface geometries - particularly parabolic and multiple-angled - that could focus sunlight to cause glare and overheating. Intelligent building orientation and facade design can clearly mitigate glare, and limiting a building envelope’s reflectivity to prevent glare might be considered a banal approach when it is clearly possible for an architect or technical advisors to demonstrate the level of risk using sun-path analysis of a reflective façade. In interior lighting, good design practice either diffuses the light to reduce the luminance or shields the source from view. There is no reason the same practice should not be applied to reflected sunlight. “If glass is the answer what was the question?” (Ian Ritchie, 1998) Although we think of glass as transparent, which it is when viewed from the darker side of the glass, and noticeably when viewed externally in daylight, glass is most often experienced as an opaque surface; it only becomes transparent

as the viewing angle becomes more perpendicular to its surface. Glass is thus generally dark in daytime (unless reflecting the sun) and at night, when lit internally, it mostly displays the building’s lighting fixtures, making its automatic default use for complete facades questionable. For the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre in London our office did consider the potential glare from the low evening sun, and mitigated this by ribbing and undulating the cast glass surface.

Architectural features that would cause undesirable reflections are best eliminated early in the design process before modification to the building’s form and facade become impossible. Failing that, there are several approaches to prevent or mitigate glare in highly specular building facades whose geometry and glazing have created unwelcome reflections.

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Mitigation Methods

Glass as a white building in the day and at night, louvres to project westerly light into the building, Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, London, August 2015, 17.00hrs, photo ©Ian Ritchie

Shading External blinds and screens, such the Middle Eastern mashrabiya, metal mesh and perforated screens as a second skin to the façade, fixed or mobile, break up the sun’s rays that enter or reflect off a building by intercepting them before they reach the facade. For east and west facing facades, increasing the depth of the mullion or structural element can create sufficient interruption of sunrays. They must be installed outside the thermally insulating glazed surface in order to be effective. Blinds installed between the thermal barrier glazed wall and an outer single glazed ventilated glass skin (The Cheesegrater and the Shard) only address solar gain, and do not mitigate glare. Brise Soleil This was popularised by Le Corbusier, this and is most commonly used to prevent facades with a large amount of glass from overheating during the summer, and It typically consists of a horizontal projection extending from the sunside facade of a building. Anti-Reflective Glass Advancements in glass manufacturing promising new ways of reducing glare include

advanced ‘high performance’ anti-reflective coatings. The benefits of using anti-reflective glass include maintaining greater transparency across the facade. Post-Construction Modification of the Reflective Surface The method used depends whether the material is glass or metal. The problem of the stainless steel surface of the Walt Disney Concert Hall was solved by hand-sanding the offending areas to a dull finish to diffuse the reflections. Sudden glint-glare from glass corners, lift, Antalya, Turkey, 23 February 2020, 15.00hrs, photo ©Ian Ritchie

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Window films and anti-reflective coatings can be applied post-construction to mitigate problem reflections. However, reduction

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of reflected light leads to an increase in the amount of solar energy absorbed, increasing the building’s solar gain, which generates its own problems. Another issue is that such coatings have a limited lifespan and may need manual removal and reapplication at regular intervals. Retrofitted measures to mitigate unwanted facade reflections are by necessity lo-tech. By considering which design features are most likely to increase the potential for issues relating to reflections, and avoiding them, and understanding the basic physics of reflection, architects should be able to greatly reduce the chances of these issues from occurring. In terms of facade materials used, specular facades

THE GLASS WORD in his own handwriting

are most commonly the source of urban glare and in that context glazing is both the most common source of, and a potential solution to, the problem. 1 Disability Glare is the reduction in visibility

caused by intense light sources in the field of view. Discomfort Glare is the sensation of annoyance or even pain induced by overly bright sources (Rea 2000). 2 The word brightness is commonly used but is technically incorrect. It is luminance and is measured in candelas/square metre. 3 There are considered three different vision

regimes. Photopic vision relates to human vision at high ambient light levels (e.g. daylight) and applies to luminance levels > 3 cd/m2. Scotopic vision relates to human vision at low ambient light levels (e.g. night) but the sense of colour is largely lost - seeing a range of gray light, and applies to luminance levels < 0.003 cd/m2. Mesopic vision relates to light levels between the photopic and scotopic visions. Illumination condition Illuminance La Villette Cité des Sciences, Paris, study for focusing sunlight with robotic mirrors, 1982, ©Rice Francis Ritchie.

Full moon

1 lux

Moonlight

.01 lux on a surface

Street lighting

10 lux

Home lighting

30 to 300 lux

Office desk lighting

100 to 1000 lux

Surgery lighting

10,000 lux

Direct sunlight

100,000 lux

4 The artist James Turrell exploits this fact

in most of his work on the limits of visual perception. 5 ‘Reflectivity: dealing with rogue solar reflections’ by David N.H. Hassall, 1991, Building Research Centre, School of Building, University of New South Wales intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

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Coming in September…

IGS AUTUMN 2020 IGS takes the road to Asia and brings you wisdom and knowledge from those at the tip of the samurai sword in building design and construction Transparent architectural structures redefining historic skylines from Asia-Pacific

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intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

Introduction to this issue written by the charismatic Johnny Choi, Chairman of Hong Kong Facade Association, Executive Boardroom Commentary from Hong Kong Green Building Council, AEDAS, DOW and many, many more. Exclusive interviews with “Patternmakers of the World” from this remarkably vibrant APAC region

ASIA-PACIFIC SPECIAL ISSUE “Architecture is the very mirror of life. You only have to cast your eyes on buildings to feel the presence of the past, the spirit of a place; they are the reflection of society.” ― I. M. Pei

This is IGS – Nothing more, nothing less…NOTHING ELSE intelligent glass solutions | summer 2020

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CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON Entuitive Vice President, Building Envelope 28 West 44th Street, Suite 1118 New York, NY 10036 Contact form on website +1 718 280 5935 www.entuitive.com

AUTHORS DETAILS SUMMER 2020 JAMES CARPENTER James Carpenter Design Associates Inc. Founding Partner and President JAMES CARPENTER DESIGN ASSOCIATES INC. 145 Hudson Street, 4th Floor New York, NY 10013 info@jcdainc.com + 1 212 431 4318 www.jcdainc.com

TALI MEJICOVSKY ARUP Associate Principal, Façade Engineering 77 Water Street New York NY 10005 USA buildingenvelopes@arup.com +1-212-896-3164 www.arup.com

JANE FREDERICK Frederick + Frederick Architects and American Institute of Architects (AIA) Founding Partner and President The American Institute of Architects 1735 New York Ave NW Washington, DC 20006-5292 partnership@aia.org 202-626-2567 www.aia.org

JEANNE GANG Studio Gang Founding Principal and Partner 50 Broad Street Suite 1003 New York, NY 10004 pajeanne@studiogang.com +1 212 579 1514 www.studiogang.com

BELEN NEMI Independent Consultant Design Architect, AIA International Associate, CPAU Registered Architect belengnemi@gmail.com ERIK VERBOON Walter P Moore Managing Director NYC 180 Maiden Lane 8th floor, Suite 803 New York, NY 10038 United States info@walterpmoore.com 212-602-1670 www.walterpmoore.com DANIEL VOS Heintges Consulting Architects & Engineers Principal 440 Park Ave S, New York, NY 10016, United States info@heintges.com 212-652-2966 www.heintges.com

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FABRICE NUSSBAUMER Glass Troesch AG Creative Director Glas Trösch AG Isolier- und Sicherheitsglas Industriestrasse 29 CH-4922 Bützberg info@glastroesch.com +41 800 118 851 www.glastroesch.ch ANDREAS BITTIS Saint-Gobain International Marketing Manager SAINT-GOBAIN Les Miroirs 18, avenue d’Alsace 92400 Courbevoie FRANCE +33 1 47 62 30 00 www.saint-gobain.com

CHRISTOPH TIMM SOM, New York Associate Director 14 Wall Street New York, NY 10005, USA Contact form on website +1 212 298 9300 www.som.com NICK LEAHY Perkins Eastman Principal 115 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003 USA info@perkinseastman.com +1 212 353 7200 www.perkinseastman.com PAUL DENZ priedemann Head of Research & Development Priedemann Facade-Lab GmbH Am Wall 17 14979 Grossbeeren/Berlin Germany facade-lab@priedemann.net +49 33701 32 79-00 www.priedemann.net DOUGLAS SUM Aurecon Associate, Facade Services Group Leader at Aurecon 8th Floor, Elite Business Center Al Barsha 1, Dubai dubai@aurecongroup.com +971 4 4081500 www.aurecongroup.com JULIA SCHIMMELPENNINGH Eastman Chemical Company Global Architectural Applications Manager Solutia Inc. Indian Orchard 730 Worcester Street Springfield, MA 01151 USA mmantyla@eastman.com 413 788 6911 www.eastman.com IAN RITCHIE Ian Ritchie Architects Founder Ian Ritchie Architects Ltd. 110 Three Colt Street London E14 8AZ mail@ianritchiearchitects.co.uk (+44) (0) 20 7338 1100 www.ianritchiearchitects.co.uk

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