The BE Blog | Building Enclosure

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A closer look at infiltration in building enclosure performance. Infiltration can have a major impact on building energy use and indoor air quality (IAQ) by allowing unconditioned and unfiltered air to penetrate a thermal enclosure. 

Understanding these coefficients is crucial for assessing the climate impact attributable to the various fuel sources utilized in a building. 

Rather than Zero Energy Buildings, we should pursue Zero Emissions Buildings. In addition to energy efficiency, we need buildings that eliminate the need for on-site fossil fuel use and only use zero emissions electricity.

The recent ratification of LEED v5 underscores the emerging priority of decarbonization by sustainable design leaders as it one of the new version's three impact areas along with quality of life and ecological conservation and restoration.

A site hardscape's contribution to a project's total embodied carbon can drastically impact the overall project’s embodied carbon footprint.

A brief chronicle of the efforts underway by leading building design professionals to support and galvanize action toward decarbonizing the built environment.

So, what is the difference between the indoor and outdoor temperature? Once your building is designed and constructed, this becomes the key question. You want to design for the design summer and winter conditions.

This article addresses ten common questions specific to LEED recertification, which may not be so clearly or pointedly addressed in the officially published material.

Constructing on top of the water instead of retreating from it lets cities expand without fighting for available inland space or worrying about rising tides. However, it’s not an easy process. Building envelopes will need to adapt to support these towns of the future.

What efficiency changes can designers implement based on a U-value? Many options are available that can make a huge difference in this metric.