The tragic fire in London, UK, raises issues with respect to claddings and continuous insulation in high performance buildings as well as retrofits. The first part of this session addresses the physics of the fire in London and why such an occurrence is unlikely in the United States and Canada.
Air Barriers are an extremely important component of a high-performance building enclosure system. For the most part, these systems are non-maintainable components and repairs can typically only be made with the removal of the exterior cladding system. To ensure a performing system, proper design, detailing and ultimately the proper installation of these systems is extremely important. You have one chance to get it right.
The session is a Case Study driven review of façade details for transparent systems. Where many education provide a review of the basic stock details the critical design issues often occur at the atypical conditions. The basic "rules of thumb" do not apply when the geometry or material choice require more from the design. This session will review the atypical conditions that do not occur in the idealized conditions. The course is crucial to those designing the enclosure of buildings that do not fit the mold of a common box.
Unreinforced Masonry (URM) buildings present a challenge for earthquake-prone communities. There are over 1,650 URM buildings in Portland and millions around the world. These structures are important historic, architectural, cultural, and economic landmarks, but their vulnerability to earthquakes imperils these buildings and the people in them.
The URM Seismic Resilience Symposium, July 18-20, 2019, is a three-day event for architects, engineers, owners, property managers, and anyone that might deal with URM buildings.
Passive House Northwest’s Annual Spring Conference is just around the corner. The conference will be held in Olympia, Washington on March 29-30 and features a great lineup of speakers and vendors making this a valuable event for professionals dedicated to high performance building design and construction. Please see the attached flyer and schedule for more information. Early Bird Registration ends Wednesday, March 14, so reserve your spot soon!
The Portland Building Enclosure Council is pleased to announce the 2018 Technology Symposium. This year’s Symposium will focus on durability issues affecting the Building Enclosure.
The number of passive houses and buildings meeting the stringent PHIUS+2015 Passive Building Standards has increased exponentially over the past two years: first single family residential projects were built, then multifamily projects and now the trend is moving towards commercial structures. Many municipalities such as NYC have already incentives in place for residential passive buildings or are evaluating to implement incentives as a solution to meeting their climate action plans.
This course will discuss the different types of roofing membranes and systems available for low slope/commercial installations and the benefits each brings to the building envelope. Over the past 25 years, there have been many changes in not just the materials available but also the installation methods used to install roofing systems. In addition to the materials, installation methods will be discussed as well as a practical discussion of how to evaluate which option may be better than others for several different scenarios.
This presentation will examine recent window and curtain wall assembly failures and performance issues for Insulated Glazing Units (IGU), aluminum coatings, gaskets, and associated water and air leakage issues. With the advent of globalization in the construction industry, façade glazing systems are beginning to experience new types of failure in the components (seals, coatings, sealants, etc.) used to assemble the complex systems and result in performance issues of today’s high rise projects.