June 2015 Monthly Meeting

Integrated building facades have the potential to play a significant role in the support of aggressive building performance goals but validation is critical to assure that the potential is actually realized. This presentation will address the role of integrated facades in significantly reducing energy use while supporting high levels of occupant satisfaction. For transparent facade assemblies, the primary factors affecting performance are the management of solar heat gain, optimizing daylighting while managing glare, visual connections, and thermal transmittance. The presentation will summarize a range of validation methods including material testing, test bed studies of assemblies, and verification of specific simulation methods. The focus of the presentation will be on a case study of the post-occupancy evaluation of a completed federal office building—EGWW. Validation of post-occupancy performance provides important feedback for further commissioning to fine tune building controls and other systems, and also provides a valuable feedback for improving future work by the design team and other professionals.