Reducing Carbon: Better Enclosures by Studying the Best

Architects are challenged to create increasingly efficient building enclosures to meet both new energy codes and societal goals to reduce carbon emissions. This session will highlight cutting-edge projects to demonstrate lessons learned about enclosure analysis, systems integration, design, and detailing. By learning from projects striving for net zero, passive house, or the Living Building Challenge, you'll gain valuable insights that you can apply to more common commercial and institutional projects to deliver proven enclosure assemblies, identify where to focus detailing effort, and recognize how to incorporate iterative energy analysis. This presentation is sponsored by the AIA Building Performance Knowledge Community.

Learning Objectives

1. Integrate iterative energy modeling into the design process to fine-tune the selection of enclosure assemblies and detailing for minimizing operational carbon.
2. Analyze the impact of linear and point thermal bridging on the clear-field thermal performance of enclosure assemblies, and make value decisions related to best application of enhancements.
3. Discover the best methods for adding insulation to enclosure assemblies for better performance and constructability without increasing condensation risk.
4. Explore key performance issues at one of the most common and impactful areas—the interface between windows and the adjacent wall assembly.

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