34 results

  • Two Sides to Sustainability & High-performance

    High performance can be defined as “a building that integrates and optimizes all major high-performance building attributes, including energy efficie…

  • Doubling Mies featured image

    Doubling Mies

    Mies van der Rohe’s concurrently designed projects for Commonwealth Promenade Apartments (1953-1956) and the Esplanade Apartments (1953-1957), saw th…

  • The Tectonics of Flimsiness

    Architecture has traditionally celebrated the joining of two building components or materials. Joinery serves as a key site for architectural express…

  • Slipping through the Cracks featured image

    Slipping through the Cracks

    We construct building enclosures to keep the elements out, but sometimes air and water infiltrate the building envelope, causing several problems for…

  • Shaping Skin

    The conventional modern facade is essentially flat, which creates the tendency toward visual monotony and problems for modulating daylight—both on th…

  • Facade Mock-ups featured image

    Facade Mock-ups

    Curtain walls and window walls are typically specified to meet a variety of different performance and testing criteria, some of which can be quite st…

  • Corrugated-geometry Copper and Glass Facade featured image

    Corrugated-geometry Copper and Glass Facade

    The subject of this case study is the design and construction of a custom corrugated-geometry facade featuring pre-patinated copper and glass for an …

  • Steel As A Curtain Wall Framing Material featured image

    Steel As A Curtain Wall Framing Material

    This paper will explore steel forming methods other than cold drawn or hot rolled processes, and how they allow steel to be utilized as the primary f…

  • Translation from Concept to Construction featured image

    Translation from Concept to Construction

    Fidelity between the built enclosure and early visualizations is rarely, if ever, an accident. When achieved, it comes as the result of persistent ef…

  • Facade with Innovation featured image

    Facade with Innovation

    Shanshui City and Star Bund Center can be considered as representative projects of RFR Shanghai recently Both provide creative solutions for complex …

  • Heat-Treated Glass featured image

    Heat-Treated Glass

    What was once an accepted reality in heat-treated exterior glass, optical disturbances in glass are under increasing scrutiny by developers, designer…

  • Realizing Bespoke Structural Glass Facades featured image

    Realizing Bespoke Structural Glass Facades

    In the very earliest stages of a design, an architect imagines a unique glazed facade form and wonders, “Is this possible?” and “What will it cost?” …

  • Thermal Stress Analysis in Glass

    The use of glass in windows and curtain walls in residential as well as in commercial buildings needs to be designed very carefully. In addition to t…