Facades+ Toronto: Building Envelope Design on the Path to Net Zero

The Facades+ conference series is crossing the border! The first Facades+ conference in Canada will be held on Ocotber 11 in Toronto, and we’re excited for our local team to join the program! This full-day symposium will showcase presentations and panels focused on the evolution of facade technology and innovative, sustainable design practices.

More information and registration here.

Workshop Overview: Implications for Building Envelope Design on the path toward Net Zero Performance

The building envelope (cladding, glazing and roofing assemblies) is an integral part of the architectural expression of any buildings. In recent years the advent of computer simulations to assist in the structural design and manufacturing of building envelope assemblies has allowed for increasingly complex designs. However, in the past ten years, energy codes have significantly increased the energy performance as part of a trend towards high performance buildings. This has put increased emphasis on the role building envelope design plays in minimizing the energy required to operate buildings while still achieving the desired architectural design. At the same time, research and progress in the ability of computer simulations to analyze the performance of envelope assemblies have led to significant breakthroughs in the understanding of how these assemblies perform especially how thermal bringing affect their effectiveness. On the path towards net zero performance, the implications of the envelope performance is increasingly harder to ignore as the traditional trade off of efficiencies from the MEP systems can no longer account for the poor performance of the building envelope. Early design considerations of the effective performance of the building envelope is becoming crucial to the success of projects. This has led to the development of new design guides, tools and metrics to inform designers and assist them in making educated decisions on the design of the building envelope early in the design process to ensure performance expectations can be met while still achieving the desired architectural design.

Learning Objectives:

1. Review current Building Codes and the trend towards Net Zero Energy as they relate to building envelope design including new requirements to address thermal bridges.
2. Learn how the performance of the building envelope in terms of massing, orientation, glazing ratio, shading, air leakage and thermal bridging can impact performance.
3. Explore how new design guides, tools and metrics can assist with the design of envelope assemblies for high performance buildings
4. Apply the Building Envelope Thermal Bridging Guide methodology to account for the impact of the design envelope for a high performance commercial building.

This session will be presented by Anik Teasdale-St. Hilaire, Facade Specialist, and Neel Bavishi, Building Energy Consultant. This session is part of the afternoon in-depth workshops that will take place at 1:15 p.m.