Green Commercial Buildings and Advanced Environmental Design Review

Flashcards covering green building design principles, façade technologies, material health, and sustainability certification systems based on the ARCHTECH 314 lecture series.

Integrated Design Process

A whole-building design approach where the needs of various building systems are considered from the very beginning of the architectural design to create high-performance buildings and synergies.

Curtain Wall

A non-structural cladding system for external walls that supports only its own weight and environmental loads, transferring them back to the primary structural frame.

Stick System

A type of curtain wall installed piece by piece on site, where glazing is inserted into the frame depending on access conditions.

Unitised System

Curtain walls pre-fabricated in modules off-site; they offer higher quality control, better manufacturing conditions, and lower installation time compared to stick systems.

Structural Silicone Glazing

High-grade silicone used to adhere and seal glass or cladding materials to aluminum subframes, designed to absorb static and dynamic loads.

Spider-glass Systems

An exterior bolted glass assembly that secures glazing to a support structure using point-fixings, designed to absorb expansion and environmental loads.

Double Skin Façade (DSF)

An envelope construction composed of two transparent skins separated by an air corridor or cavity, often utilizing active and passive design strategies.

Rainscreen Façade

A double-wall construction comprising an outer skin of panels and an airtight insulated backing wall separated by a ventilated cavity to prevent heavy water penetration.

Chimney Effect

The movement of air into and out of building cavities resulting from buoyancy due to differences in indoor-to-outdoor air density, temperature, and moisture.

Biophilic Design

A concept relating to increasing occupant connectivity to the natural environment through direct and indirect nature to improve health and wellbeing.

Green Façade

A system where climbing plants grow directly along a wall or via an indirect support structure like cables or trellises.

Living Wall

A technology-supported system where plants are integrated into continuous or modular materials to create uniform growth across the surface, often using hydroponics.

R-value

A measure of thermal resistance per unit of a barrier's exposed area; the greater the value, the better the component resists conductive heat flow.

Aerogel

A synthetic solid consisting almost entirely of air with extremely low density and thermal conductivity; used for high-performance insulation in translucent cladding.

Vacuum Insulated Panels (VIP)

Thermal insulation consisting of a rigid core in a gas-tight enclosure from which air has been evacuated, providing superior insulation performance.

Phase Change Materials (PCM)

Materials that liquefy at specific temperatures, absorbing and storing heat, then releasing it as they solidify, acting as advanced thermal mass.

Building Retrofit

The process of modifying a building's systems or structure after initial construction and occupation to improve performance, energy efficiency, and value.

Circular Economy

An economic model based on designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

A tool for quantifying environmental impacts across a product's life stages: extraction, manufacture, construction, use, and end-of-life disposal.

Global Warming Potential (GWP)

An LCA indicator measuring how much heat a greenhouse gas like $CO_2$ traps in the atmosphere over a specific timeframe, usually 100 years.

Environmental Product Declaration (EPD)

An independently verified, publicly registered document providing transparent data on the environmental performance of a building product across its life cycle.

Building Information Modelling (BIM)

The digital construcción of an accurate virtual model of a building containing precise geometry and data to support design, construction, and operation.

Performance Gap

The difference between a building's predicted energy performance (computed during design) and the actual measured energy used once operational.

Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE)

A systematic collection of information about the actual performance of a building in use, focusing on both quantitative data and occupant satisfaction.

Smart Materials

Materials that have changeable properties and can reversibly change shape or color in response to stimuli like light, temperature, or electric fields.

Shape-Memory Alloy (SMA)

An alloy, such as Nitinol, that remembers its original shape and returns to it when heated above a specific transition temperature.

Electrochromic Glass

Also called Smart Glass, it incorporates a film that changes opacity or tinting when an electrical voltage is applied, providing dynamic shading.

Luminous Flux

The total amount of light emitted by a light source, measured in lumens ($lm$).

Illuminance

A measure of the amount of light that falls on a surface per unit area, measured in lux ($lx$), where $10.76 \text{ lux} = 1 \text{ foot candle}$.

Inverse Square Law for Light

The principle stating that illumination from a point source is inversely proportional to the square of the distance ($Illuminance = \frac{Luminous flux}{d^2}$).

Color Rendering Index (CRI)

A scale from 0 to 100 indicating how accurate a light source is at rendering color when compared to a reference light source.

Circadian Lighting

Electric lighting designed to imitate the changing color and intensity of sunlight to optimize human biological rhythms and wellbeing.

Bioenergy

Renewable energy derived from biological sources such as plants, agricultural waste, and other organic matter.

Biomass

Biological material derived from living organisms, used to produce biofuels, biogas, or heat through combustion.

Photovoltaics (PV)

The conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials; cells are grouped into modules or solar panels.

BIPV (Building Integrated Photovoltaics)

Photovoltaic materials used to replace conventional building materials in parts of the building envelope, such as roofs, skylights, or façades.

Net Zero Energy Building (NZEB)

A building that balances its total annual energy consumption through on-site renewable generation and associated feed-in credits.

Energy Use Intensity (EUI)

A building's annual energy use expressed as a function of its size, calculated as $kWh/sqm$ per annum.