Discussion Materials:

The Evolution of Building Envelope

The Building Envelope Design Guide will constantly evolve, with its users participating in this
evolution rather than simply using a set of fixed, definitive guidelines. They will thus be
advancing the evolution of the building envelope itself. The first building envelope that protected
humans from the elements was probably a cave that provided a degree of privacy and security.
The earliest building envelopes were dome-shaped structures that combined wall and roof
(Figure 2A). At an early stage, however, the two dominant forms of envelope evolved,
depending on climate and available materials: the timber frame and the masonry wall (Figure 2B
and 2C). Early shelters in the warm climates of Africa and Asia used timber or bamboo frames
clad with leaves or woven textiles. In other regions and climates heavier indigenous materials
such as stone, rock and clay baked by the sun were used to provide more permanent shelter and
protection from the heat and cold (Figure 2D).

To this day rural regions in lesser developed countries still construct these forms of shelter. In
the developed world we still use envelopes of timber frame and masonry walls, although both
have evolved into a wide range of materials—some natural, others synthetic. Roofs evolved
independently as waterproof elements with their own set of materials.

Thus, eventually the roof, wall and floor became distinct elements of the building envelope that
have continued to this day with very little change in concept, use and even material. A medieval
dwelling might have walls of wood, brick or stone, a wood roof structure, a slate tile or thatch
roof and a floor of stone or hardened dirt. Such a dwelling can still be found today in many
regions of the world.

To take one element of the envelope, the wall, its basic performance requirements have remained
the same from medieval times to this day: protection of the interior from the elements and
security for its occupants. However, our expectations have vastly increased, both in terms of
absolute performance and the ability to control the impact of exterior water, sunlight and the
ambient outside temperature on our interior environment. Depending on a society's structure and
economy, such needs as degree of permanence of our exterior system, its scale and adornment
and our desire to have a wide variety of exterior envelope choices may also vary considerably.

Compared to most of today's walls the medieval or renaissance masonry wall was simple.
Initially the wall was a single homogeneous material—stone or brick-exposed on the exterior and
interior. Such walls are still constructed today, although the wall is more likely to be reinforced
concrete or concrete block. Before long, the historic wall would become adorned: a rough
structural stone would be faced on the exterior with a precisely cut and fitted facing of fine stone
or marble, and the interior would be faced with smooth plaster (Figure 3).

As soon as the structural wall became faced with different finish materials the beginnings of
variable performance capability emerged. The separation of the structure and facing presaged the
layered exterior wall of today. The structure of rough cut stone could rise independently from its
facing, which could be prefabricated in the craftsman's shop. The high-quality facing and its
detailing also provided protection from the weather for the structural masonry within (Figure 4).

Historic buildings and even historic revival buildings

accomplished many of the building envelope functions by
default: thick, heavy masonry was fireproof and good for
insulation in both summer and winter. It was excellent
acoustically and, with sheltering roofs and good water protective
details, was reasonably watertight and draft free by the standards
of the time. However, by modern standards, the wall had fixed
and limited performance capabilities.
The big change in the concept of the wall—and the real beginning of today's concept of the
building envelope—occurred with the invention of the steel, (and later, the reinforced concrete)
frame in the nineteenth century. The exterior wall could become a screen against the elements
and no longer be needed to support the floors and roof. However, for several decades steel
frames were buried in masonry walls, and buildings continued to be designed in gothic or
renaissance styles. The modern architectural revolution beginning in the early 20th century
changed this and by mid-century the steel or concrete framed office building with its lightweight
metal and glass curtain wall had become the new world-wide vernacular for larger commercial
and institutional buildings.

When the wall became a nonstructural screen-in and no longer supported the upper floors and
roof, it lost the beneficial attributes of mass but gained in providing performance options. Whole
new industries arose that would develop insulation and fireproofing materials, air and moisture
barriers and interior and exterior facings. More recently the exterior wall has become a major
subject of building science studies, largely because of the wall's key role in managing heat gain,
heat loss and moisture penetration. As a result, the modern wall now consists of a series of
performance "layers" (Figure 5).

A cross section of a typical layered exterior wall of today illustrates the complexity that this
approach leads to in practice (Figure 6).

A different material may achieve each performance requirement, with

each performing a separate function, or some materials may perform
multiple functions. For example, the air barrier may simply be a coating on a support layer.
Function and Performance

The complexities of today's wall can also be exemplified by listing its functional requirements,
or needs that must be met. There are at least 13 distinct needs, as listed below. Most of these
functions also apply to fenestration and the roof and a few also apply to below grade construction
(see Figure 1). Each function (with a few exceptions) has its own performance standards and
methods of measurement, methods of testing for compliance, and acceptability criteria.
Structural: If the wall is not part of the main building structure, support own weight and transfer
lateral loads to building frame.
1.
Water: Resist water penetration.2. Air: Resist excessive air infiltration.3. Condensation: Resist
condensation on interior surfaces under service conditions.4. Movement: Accommodate
differential movement (caused by moisture, seasonal or diurnal temperature variations, and
structural movement). 5. Energy conservation: Resist thermal transfer through radiation,
convection and conduction.6. Sound: Attenuate sound transmission.7. Fire safety: Provide rated
resistance to heat and smoke.8. Security: Protect occupants from outside threats.9.
Maintainability: Allow access to components for maintenance, restoration and replacement.10.
Constructability: Provide adequate clearances, alignments and sequencing to allow integration of
many components during construction using available components and attainable workmanship.
11. Durability: Provide functional and aesthetic characteristics for a long time.12. Aesthetics: Do
all of the above and look attractive.13. Economy: Do all of the above inexpensively.14.
Performance refers to the desired level (or standard) to which the system must be designed for
each of the above
functional requirements. For example, what dimensions of movement must be accommodated,
and what is the expected useful life, or durability, of the system.
Function, Performance, Design and Construction Relationships

The systems and elements that comprise the building envelope are each discrete assemblies that,
in many instances, are designed by specialist consultants and installed by specialist sub-
contractors. The mechanical system, for example, will be designed by a specialist engineering
consultant and installed by several different mechanical sub-contractors. Some assemblies have a
variety of methods of design and procurement. A metal and glass curtain wall may alternatively
be a proprietary catalog assembly, a custom assembly designed by the architect with input from
manufacturers or a consultant, or designed by a consultant to meet the architect's requirements.
Each system, however, also has functional, performance, design and construction
relationship to others.

Functional performance for the thermal environment, moisture protection, sustainability and
durability are shared by all 4 of our major subsystems: walls, fenestration, roofing and below
grade. Thus each has to be designed to contribute its appropriate share of the overall functional
effectiveness in meeting the performance requirements for the whole building. Acoustic
performance for the exterior is the responsibility of the wall system and, to a lesser extent, the
fenestration, while daylight transmission and control is the responsibility of the fenestration and
the roof (if there are skylights, although these will be designed by the fenestration designers).
Natural ventilation, if provided, will be a fenestration design problem but will also have major
repercussions on the HVAC design. If the HVAC system employs perimeter heating or cooling
this must be integrated with the envelope performance requirements. Interior air quality is
primarily an HVAC issue, mainly concerned with outside air supply and filtering. The exterior
wall will also have some performance requirements relating to materials and permeability.

These relationships and some others are "flagged" in the matrix shown in Tables 2 and 3. Table 2
shows the list of basic performance requirements that are covered in this guide. Table 3 shows
the list of secondary performance requirements that are covered. In addition, aesthetics is shown
as an "influence". Unlike the other performance requirements, aesthetics is not subject to
scientific testing and measurement. Nonetheless—particularly for the wall and fenestration
systems of the building envelope—it is a powerful influence in the system and material selection
process. The attributes of color, texture and pattern are familiar. The attribute of "association"
refers to issues such as the use of stone to represent solidity and permanence (besides its possible
measurable attributes of durability), or the desire of some colleges to require red-tile roofs on
new campus buildings.

The group of practice considerations refers to issues that appear in all systems and are critical to
the successful implementation of the whole project, from concept to commissioning. Innovation
refers to emerging methods, materials and processes that may improve the performance, cost or
appearance of a system as a whole or any element of it.

Table 2. Function and Performance Relationships of the Building Envelope: Basic

Performance Requirements

Key:

X Major determinant or influence

(X) Minor determinant or influence
Table 3. Function and Performance Relationships of the Building Envelope: Safety, Aesthetics,
Practice and Innovation

Key:
X Major determinant or influence
(X) Minor determinant or influence
The functional and performance relationships shown are also accompanied by physical
connectivity. Many of the building envelope assemblies are connected to and supported by the
building structure. Since the envelope receives certain loads—such as wind and seismic, and, in
some instance—blast, its members must be capable of distributing these loads to the building
structure besides resisting them within their own subsystems. Obviously, if the HVAC system
employs perimeter heating and cooling, the distribution system will be part of the overall
building HVAC distribution. The physical relationship of the roof assemblies to the structure is
critical to their performance.

These relationships mean that the building envelope cannot be designed in isolation. It is a
function of design management to ensure that the performance attributes and the physical
connections between the envelope and the rest of the building are integrated in concept and
execution from the commencement of the design process.

Safety, Security and Building Codes

Safety has long been the traditional focus of building codes, starting with the earliest codes
related to fire safety. Protection against earthquakes has been the subject of codes in seismic
regions for the last three quarters of the twentieth century. These codes have become very highly
developed and have a strong engineering and scientific base assisted by governmental,
institutional or industrial programs of research and development. Some codes also mandate
requirements for floods and high winds, but these are much less developed than those for
earthquakes.
In general, the intent of codes has been to mandate minimum standards that provide acceptable
safety at an affordable cost. While codes also provide some property protection, this has not been
a major target and has not been a stated intent of the codes. Many features of building codes are
understood to represent a minimum standard and in practice are almost always exceeded for
reasons of comfort and amenity. For example for many decades all U.S. building codes have
agreed that the minimum floor area of a bedroom is 70 square feet with a minimum dimension of
7 feet in any horizontal direction; however, few bedrooms in even the most economical tract
house are of this size.
Codes that do not appear to offer an accepted everyday benefit—and that are seen as adding cost
to the project—are all too often treated as a maximum. This has created problems when buildings
correctly designed and constructed to a seismic code have suffered significant damage—which
the code permits, provided that life safety is not compromised. In part owing to the success of
codes in protecting public safety, attention has begun to shift toward property protection because
of the large economic losses incurred by earthquakes, high winds and floods. This loss is only
partly due to the cost of repair and reconstruction; deeper economic losses are incurred by
business and service interruption and losses such as market share and tourism.
As a result, designers are being encouraged to create designs for performance against natural
hazards that are appropriate for a building's occupancy, function and importance. This means
designing for an acceptable level and type of damage. This also generally means designing for
performance above that anticipated by normal code-conforming design.
Another development in design against natural hazards has been the encouragement of multi-
hazard design. The intent here—as in many other developments in the design process—is to
implement a higher level of design integration. This involves ensuring that buildings subject to
more than one natural hazard—for example both floods and earthquakes—take advantage of
design methods that assist in countering all the hazards that apply and identify and find solutions
for those instances where measures may conflict. Thus while elevating a building above grade is
an excellent solution for design in a flood plain, great care must be taken to avoid "soft first
stories" that have proven disastrous in earthquakes.
While building safety has traditionally focused on natural hazards, building security is focused
on societal and political hazards—those created by criminal or disaffected members of our own
society or foreign elements that see the U.S. as an enemy. Some degree of concern has always
been present in design, of which keys and locks are the most familiar. Remote surveillance
systems have been around for some time in retail stores and other sensitive environments. The
tragedy of September 11, 2001 and the condition of war that has existed since that time have
thrown a much more intense light on the need for building security.
The major difference between attack hazards and natural hazards—beyond a deliberate attempt
to damage the building and cause casualties—is that of probability. Although natural hazards
vary greatly in probability there is considerable statistical information on the issues of where,
how big and how often a given hazard will occur, and considerable scientific study is devoted to
this topic. Human-caused hazards have very little history, and the relatively few instances
provide a very poor statistical database. As a result, it is at present very hard to know the extent
to which it is prudent to take steps to mitigate attack by blast and/or chemical, biological and
radiological (CBR) weapons. Meanwhile, much research and development is underway, ranging
from testing vehicle barriers to the development of building code provisions that reduces the risk
of progressive collapse from damage as a result of bombing.
This is an area that may be expected to evolve rapidly. Some of this evolution will be technical.
Some will be societal and political as it begins to become apparent how large and how long-term
the threats remain. The questions of where, how big and how often need much more convincing
answers than are available at present before the full impact on building design can be gauged.
Meanwhile, this subject is superimposed on the traditional range of issues with which the
designer must grapple. Again, the need is for design integration with of security concerns
considered from the outset.
Innovation
Although many historic materials are still in use—roofs are still constructed of copper and slate,
and walls employ natural stone—the building envelope has been a prime target of innovation
since the first quarter of the twentieth century. Innovation has been most significant in the wall
and fenestration systems of the envelope and has been driven by four main influences:
Cost reduction for a competitive market Enhanced performance Material innovation and
industrial research & development Aesthetics
These influences are all related to one another. Much industrial research and development has
been aimed at obtaining a competitive edge through performance improvement or cost reduction.
For example, pre-cast concrete fabrication enjoyed about two decades of great success because
the material and shapes appealed to architects. Innovation in pre-casting techniques, form design
and fabrication and surface finishes resulted from collaboration with architects and the effort to
be competitive as a supplier. Ultimately, however the pre-eminence of the pre-cast panel fa¸ade
was seriously threatened by the rise of glass fiber reinforced concrete, a synthetic material
innovation that was lighter and more economical than concrete and more easily formed into
sculptured shapes.
The construction industry is intensely competitive. Much of this stems from the traditional
approach to contractor and supplier selection—the competitive bid. This places a premium on
lowest cost, resulting in innovation by contractors and sub-contractors trying to get an edge on
their competitors. Another aspect of cost is that of reduction in construction time, which
translates into cost reduction for a building project's entire stakeholder. Thus, for example, the
separation of the building envelope wall and fenestration from the structure enabled the structure
to be erected faster, while prefabricated components such as curtain wall assemblies and pre-cast
panels were fabricated off-site.
The effort to reduce on-site labor through componentization also originated in the effort to
reduce costs and construction
time. It is noteworthy that the building industry was able to achieve extraordinary feats of
construction time using traditional materials when labor costs were low. For example, the
Empire State Building in New York City was constructed in just over 12 months—at the height
of the great depression—by laborers working 24 hours a day for a contractor who used the first
fast-track scheduling process. A booming construction industry and post-war labor costs soon
made such an approach prohibitive.
Aesthetics has also been a powerful influence on the envelope. The most significant
application—that of the development of the curtain wall—depended initially on the creation of a
market by architects. Since the first all-glass skyscrapers were sketched by Mies van de Rohe in
1919 and 1921 (Figure 7), architects strove to achieve ever simpler and purer glass forms.

The metal and glass curtain wall became a feature of some of the seminal works of the
International Style that dominated world-wide design after World War II. Le Corbusier's
Pavilion Suisse, Paris (Figure 8A) designed in 1929 was one of the most influential. The most
significant development of the curtain wall, however, occurred in the United States. First
designed as an expensive, refined and elegant custom artifact, it gradually became a standard
commodity, and today is the least costly way to enclose a structure. Perhaps more important, for
several decades the glass box perfectly symbolized, in its image of contemporary elegance and
modernity, the aspirations of American corporate architecture from Wall Street to Main Street.
The United Nations building of 1947 (Figure 8B) and the Lever Brothers building of 1952
(Figure 8C) had enormous impact on architects and owners alike. Within a few years every city
in the U.S. had its blue, glass-curtain walled cubes, from corporate headquarters to modest
savings and loan branches (Figure 8D). Today, very refined custom walls are still being
conceived that can demonstrate an extraordinary scale and delicacy (Figure 9).
Many problems, such as leakage and obtaining pleasing glass colors, had to be solved in early
curtain walls. Manufacturers and influential architects working together managed to do so. The
first curtain walls were expensive, custom-made assemblies. The proprietary curtain wall has
now evolved into the least expensive way of cladding a building. However, very refined custom
walls are still being conceived that can demonstrate an extraordinary scale and delicacy. (Figure
9)
Future innovations still in their infancy are the double-skin curtain wall that aims to provide
controlled natural ventilation and hybrid systems that aim to achieve substantial energy savings
as a hedge against an uncertain energy future. (Figure 10)

A number of categorizations of the systems or subsystems that comprise a building are in

existence. They are:

 Structure
 Envelope
 Mechanical
 Interior

Thus the systems and assemblies of the envelope are one of the four main parts of the building
both in terms of their physical existence and in their contribution to overall building
performance. The envelope protects the other systems from harsh aspects of the outside. It also
works in conjunction with the other systems to ensure a safe and benign environment for the
building occupants. Thus the envelope is a gatekeeper, allowing certain aspects of the exterior
into the building, rejecting some and changing the nature of others. The design of the envelope is
very complex and many factors have to be evaluated and balanced to ensure the desired levels of
thermal, acoustic and visual comfort together with safety, accessibility and aesthetic excellence.
This guide provides information and recommendations to assist the designer in achieving their
goals. While levels of performance are discussed and many quantitative criteria are explained, no
mandatory requirements are stated. Those are the purpose of building codes and regulations. This
lesson states that any design work will conform to code requirements but deal also with many
functions that, while not subject to code, are essential for building excellence.

References:

(F. S. Merritt and J. Ambrose, ‘‘Building Engineering and Systems Design,’’2nd Ed., Van
Nostrand Reinhold, New York.)