"Time to embrace a new way of building"
ARCHITECTURE | ENVELOPE | DFMA | COMPUTATION
Building Envelope & Facade Design :
The Envelope or Façade is the primary moderator of the environment for all buildings and influences energy performance and user comfort. To perform successfully, façades needs to meet several criteria through its design development and details. It is the art of resolving aesthetic, environmental and structural issues to achieve the enclosure of habitable space.
When we design building envelopes and façades the aim is to reduce energy consumption and create a comfortable, healthy, secure and safe environment, while at the same time meeting the architectural and aesthetic requirements of the project. Envelopes often accounts for over 25% of a construction budget.
Simplifying Complexity :
For all proposed visions, the facade designs should fulfil the many complex functions required. A rigorous design and analysis process is required to find the best balance between safety and security, efficient use of energy, daylighting and comfort.
By rationalising the facade design, whether to simplify geometry or to introduce cost-saving repetition, we make sure it can be competitively tendered, drawing on close collaboration between many disciplines.
By understanding the strategic aims of the project in its earliest stages, we can define how the building envelope can achieve the best outcome. We specialise in facades that are easily assembled and can be procured with minimum impact to cost and risk factors.
Analysis & Design :
The performance of a building is a matter of balance between the energy use of building services and the losses and gains occurring through the building envelope. A holistic approach to façade engineering and building services is essential for low energy sustainable buildings to create suitable habitable conditions.
Truly sustainable building facades can only be achieved by accurately establishing the levels of performance that these elements deliver in advance of the detail design and procurement phases. Environmental Compliance Analysis allows for a deeper understanding of the likely levels of performance of a building envelope and can be used to accurately assess all of the thermal bridging and thermal bridging factors (Y value) of any potential design.
Thermal analysis calculates the temperature and heat transfer within and between components in a design and its environment. This involves the evaluation of the thermal performance of a framework and evaluation of partial or global U-values of a building envelope.
Depending on the procurement route, when working with the specialist sub-contractors it is essential to develop a responsibility matrix and have a final check on the sequence of work to set the key stages of quality control and inspection,
The interface between two sub-contractors (who does what and when) helps to bring clarity on the responsibility of either of them.. It is essential to set benchmarks using certain area before works are started for the full space. Mock-up to be inspected for sign off at specific points in the construction process.
Some of the areas of work for Envelope Design
Copyright © All Rights Reserved
