Overcladding masonry facades: Additional practical insights

As an alternative to removing and replacing the original masonry, project teams and architects are encouraged to design an insulated facade layer with vapour barrier, creating a new enclosure that is watertight and energy efficient, and possibly more attractive. This raises a question about how to ensure the ideal placement and attachment of the insulation, air barrier, and cladding.

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Maintaining building quality control with fabric cladding

Tension fabric structures have served a key role as a cost-effective facility solution for years. In some cases, users have turned to fabric buildings when brick-and-mortar construction is not economically feasible or would take too long to complete. In other cases, fabric is more suitable to the application in the first place, because its translucency provides natural daylighting, or due to the inherent corrosion-resistance of fabric cladding.

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Using sliding doors to achieve flexible design

Although flexible design can provide long-lasting solutions for most architectural projects, it provides several unique benefits for a healthcare facility. As the past few years have shown, a healthcare centre’s ability to quickly respond to shifts in patient and staff needs can have a substantial impact on patient outcomes as well as the general public’s health and well-being.

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Surveying the 2023 design/construction landscape

For 13 years, Construction Canada has conducted an annual survey to gather insights from readers about the state of the industry. The survey offers a glimpse into the daily operations of the architecture, engineering, construction, and operation (AECO) professionals who are  responsible for designing, constructing, and maintaining various structures such as condominium towers, hospitals, schools, and offices.

Construction Canada is the official publication of Construction Specifications Canada (CSC). An interdisciplinary association, CSC brings …

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Insulation’s crucial role in creating habitable basements

Aside from the structural challenges, the thermal challenges for basements include the following functions: (1) facilitating moisture drainage at the face of the exterior insulation down to the foundation drainage system, (2) keeping temperature extremes outside the basement wall, especially cold temperatures, and (3) preventing condensation of the basement air onto the interior of walls in the basement.

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Choosing metal roofs for solar photovoltaics

With the cost of solar decreasing significantly over the last decade, in addition to the new tax incentives driving the popularity of solar, the breakeven and return on investment (ROI) improves every year—this is even more evident with solar on metal roofs, because of the lower combined installation costs (i.e. photovoltaics [PV] plus roof).

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