This month’s BEC meeting will feature a construction site tour of the Mercy Corps Headquarters in downtown Portland. The tour will focus on the design and construction issues associated with the building enclosure systems for this project that is pursuing LEED Platinum certification.
Uncontrolled moisture accumulation in building envelopes leads to mold infestation and structural degradation in buildings. A 2004 survey conducted by the City of Seattle documented 52 recent moisture-related building failures, costing $98 million (Aoki-Kramer, Karagiozis). This same study speculates that as much as 20% of the multi-family housing stock built in Seattle since 1984 could be affected.
The essential role of the building envelope—providing shelter, form, and image—can be expanded to significantly improve building performance, including major reductions in energy use. Mark Perepelitza, a ZGF architect, will be presenting his research on effective applications of high-performance integrated facades for the Northwest.
As the Director of the Architectural Group of Orfield Laboratories, Wes Chapman is responsible for the development of applications of the firm's Certified Building Performance Standards and Certified Building Performance Measures. Orfield Laboratories is the nation's only multi-disciplinary architectural consulting lab.
The BEC will not have a meeting for the month of October. We will reconvene November 12th. Thank you and sorry for the inconvenience.
Many residential buildings in the Pacific Northwest have or are undergoing comprehensive rehabilitation largely to remedy moisture-related problems. The rehabilitation of the building enclosure presents a unique opportunity to examine and assess the actual energy-related performance of the in-service building and to determine the energy impact of the building enclosure improvements (i.e. from increased insulation, thermally improved window frames and glazing, improved air-tightness).
The Building Code defines criteria for air infiltration and structural performance for fenestration products but is essentially silent on the topic of water penetration resistance. The industry standard in the U.S. for determining the water penetration performance for fenestration products has essentially been controlled by the manufacturers of the window products themselves.
In the recent construction economy, high performance new building construction has been complimented with prominent energy efficient retrofit projects. In both categories of construction, improved building envelope design and materials are needed to achieve energy savings goals. One important envelope element is a new class of glazing that has entered the market. So-called “super insulating glass” is capable of attaining high thermal resistance by combining a variety of high performance components.
Whole-building commissioning is a process of quality assurance in building construction. It is a systematic process of ensuring, through documented verification, that building systems are installed and perform according to the documented design and the owner's operational needs. The process starts at the project Design Development stage and continues through staff training, pre-warranty inspection and completion of the wrap-up Commissioning Manual.
This presentation has been requested and scheduled for the AIA National Convention June 11, 2010. As an early viewing of the same presentation, we will briefly review the latest version of The Living Building Challenge 2.0, while discussing envelope opportunities within this progressive framework. The Living Building Challenge is a measure of sustainability far more progressive than LEED Platinum or Triple Net Zero alone. This system does not contain points, rather 20 simple but profound imperatives that is performance based, not prescriptive.