Tag Archives: Curtain wall

Cutting through the smoke

For decades, the words ‘design flexibility’ and ‘fire-rated glass’ would not have appeared in the same sentence. Traditional polished wired glass was the only glazing material permitted in fire-rated areas. Its network of wires holds together broken glass during a fire to slow the spread of flames and smoke longer than was previously possible with other available glazing products.

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Advancing energy-efficient timber façades

The building industry consumes 40 per cent of the world’s energy, and is responsible for more than 38 per cent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to studies completed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD 2009). The energy demand and its costs will continue to increase; this explains why Canadian building code requirements are becoming more stringent.

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Canadian Museum for Human Rights: Project details

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is rooted in humanity, making visible in the architecture the fundamental commonality of humankind—a symbolic apparition of ice, clouds, and stone set in a field of sweet grass. Carved into the earth and dissolving into the sky on the Winnipeg horizon, the abstract ephemeral wings of a white dove embrace a mythic stone mountain of 450-million-year-old Tyndall limestone in the creation of a unifying and timeless landmark for all nations and cultures of the world.

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Glazing performance and sustainable design

Glazing is an integral part of modern design. From a thermal standpoint, glazing and its structure or frame is the weakest point of a wall assembly.1 A double-glazed vinyl window with argon’s U-factor (i.e. thermal transmittance) is typically around 3 W/(m2 K). This means the window will gain or lose around 3 W per m2 per degree Celsius. An efficient fibreglass window system’s U-factor can be as low as 1 W/(m2 K). An aluminum curtain wall system can range as high as 4 W/(m2 K). On the other hand, the U-factor of a 152-mm (6-in.) steel stud, with batt and exterior continuous insulation, can be around 0.4 W/(m2 K).

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