Full Description

A popular architectural trend involves covering the building envelope with glass façades. This design choice can present challenges to reaching building energy efficiency, thermal comfort and visual comfort targets. This article illustrates the potential benefits, risks and strategies of double skin façade (DSF) to optimize building performance. Results from detailed engineering analyses are presented to demonstrate the benefits of accurate determination of gains that affect thermal comfort and loads that influence sizing of equipment. This improved envelope modeling can feed into whole-building-simulation models.

Units: Dual

Citation: ASHRAE Journal, vol. 51, no. 4, April 2009