Ty Spencer
Assistant Project Manager
Building Envelope Sciences
A Report by GRLA Building Envelope Sciences Assistant Project Manager, Ty Spencer, on a recent seminar on facades and building envelopes hosted by the legendary Dr. Joseph Lstiburek (sponsored by Porcelanosa).
Dr. Lstiburek, called "the dean of North American building science" by the Wall Street Journal, has a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience as well as a terrific sense of humor. He also has a knack for simplifying any subject - all of which made for a highly enjoyable day.
The building envelope keeps the inside in and the outside out. - Joe Lstiburek
During the day long seminar, attendees were able to discuss numerous subjects relating to the building envelope, yet the entire experience can be summarized into three words: Trust Your Judgement!
Our jobs as designers and problem solvers for the building envelope seem to become even more complex daily. As Dr. Lsitburek said, we used to just build our shelters with rocks!
Multiple factors influence modern building enclosure commissioning and design such as:
Building codes, amendments, restrictions, etc. which can vary from state to state, and town to town.
A multitude of different materials which may or may not be compatible, or even allowed to overlap each other.
Numerous products also have a vast number of individual manufacturers to choose from.
Input of technology. There are several programs (WUFI for example) available to help determine where and when buildings will fail.
Increasing energy efficiency requirements.
All of these factors are intended to help benefit our buildings, but often tends to complicate design. At the end of the day, the take away from the seminar was that building envelope engineers should remember Dr. Lstiburek’s words of wisdom and simply: Trust Your Judgement!
The MERC at Moody & Main - GRLA provided design review, mock-up assistance, and construction observation and testing to the CM at this new mixed use development in Waltham, Massachusetts.