Building Performance

PERFORMANCE

Recorded by Sofie Pelsmakers, images by Essi Nisonen

KEY READINGS 

• Energy, People Buildings: Making Sustainable Architecture Work, Kimpian, J., Hartman, H., Pelsmakers, S., RIBA Publishing

• Housing Fit For Purpose: Performance, Feedback and Learning, Stevenson, F. RIBA

• Designing for the climate emergency, a Guide for Architecture Students, Pelsmakers, S., Donovan, E., Hoggard, A., Kozminska, U., RIBA

INSPIRATIONAL BUILT EXAMPLES

• Transsolar, Tower Building C10, Hochschule Darmstadt, Germany

• Sauerbruch Hutton, GSW Headquarters Tower, Berlin, Germany

• Architype, The Enterprise Centre, UK

BUILDING PERFORMANCE

The essence of a building's success lies in its performance and the building envelope contributes significantly to the overall building’s performance. For the energy performance and occupant satisfaction and wellbeing, particularly crucial are the performance of airtightness, thermal bridging, the design of openings for ventilation and daylight and solar gain while minimising glare and overheating. It is paramount that user experience and human factors are included from the start because it is vital for health and well-being. While regulations exist, enforcing continuous envelope performance remains a challenge. Standards tend to overlook the nuances of real-world application. Feedback from various projects reveals critical issues such as insulation gaps and poor airtightness, calling for improved validation and rigorous construction. In buildings, many stakeholders need to be involved at different stages of the process (i.e., during planning, design, execution and the in-use stage and later feedback from it.