High-Performance Building Envelopes: Design Methods for Energy Efficient Facades

The objective of this paper is to discuss design methods for sustainable, high-performance facades, and the necessary steps in ensuring that the environmental factors and energy-efficiency strategies are integrated with the design process. The facade is one of the most significant contributors to the energy consumption and the comfort parameters of any building. Control of physical environmental factors (heat, light, sounds) must be considered during the design process, as well as design strategies which improve occupants’ comfort. High-performance facades need to block adverse external environmental effects and maintain internal comfort conditions with minimum energy consumption, and the location and climate become one of the crucial factors in selecting appropriate design strategies. The first part of the paper identifies design methods for high-performance facades, differentiated by climate types. The second part of the paper discusses different building performance analysis steps that can assist in the design process, such as energy modeling, daylight modeling, thermal comfort modeling, and heat transfer analysis. Finally, two case studies are presented to show how these strategies have been implemented on architectural projects.

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