Features
That’s Rich: insights from Facades Plus

In his introductory remarks for the Facades Plus Vancouver conference held in May, Ryan Bragg, corporate and commercial principal at Perkins and Will, discussed the importance of considering not only operational carbon in building designs but also embodied carbon in specified materials. 

He particularly mentioned that glass and aluminum are materials that are quite high in embodied carbon. The operational carbon benefits of using triple glazing in southern B.C. may be offset by the embodied carbon incorporated in that extra lite of glass. During the panel on Indigenous Envelopes, architect Kate Gerson from Dialog addressed the new First Nations Health Authority office project. She stated, “Admittedly, the facade does include a lot of aluminum and glass, which, we’ve been reminded, are not ideal materials to use these days.”

When describing the early design stages of Winnipeg’s Fort Whyte Buffalo Crossing building, Stantec principal, Michael Banman, said, “At this point, most of the design was intuitive, based on first principles. We can’t have a lot of glazing and need to be really strategic where it is. We need a compact shape. We want to minimize the facade to the north. As architects, we understand these things and this was all largely intuitive.”

The project was analyzed by Stantec’s energy and environmental experts and they came back with a triangle-shaped building. According to Banman, their response was, “Don’t touch it, don’t move it, don’t do a thing. Don’t even move it 0.1 degree.” 

“That was the exact right location in this world to maximize the buildings ability to balance energy in terms of the number of windows, type of windows, the location of the windows, the access to natural light and the exterior shading,” recalled Banman. “In the winter, we don’t just want the daylight in, so we specified a glazing that maximizes solar heat gain. We can’t afford the energy to pump that heat out of the building in the summer. We needed exterior solar shades. It’s not enough to let the heat in and then deal with it then. This is a mass timber building and has huge sliding screens attached to the very top of the parapet for exterior shading.”

Who knew there was such a big difference with spacers? Banman told attendees that there was a 65 per cent increase in energy from one spacer type alone. “That’s outrageous. If you’re dealing with a high-performance building, the spacer becomes incredibly important.” 

Being a nature preserve, it’s not surprising there is bird-friendly glass. “This site has a lot of history of bringing waterfowl back to Winnipeg,” Banman said. “The unusual thing is the low-E coating is on the number three surface and you expect it to be on the number two. Many, many, many glaziers called to tell us that we have it wrong. We can assure you that we don’t have it wrong. It is correct. It’s just not what you are used to.”

J-F Robert, president of Blackcomb Facade Technology, shared insights from some notable projects his company has completed in the region. “You don’t need a Passive House-certified system to install a fenestration system in Passive House project but it’s a really good starting point,” he told attendees. The Raico system they use lends itself to complex shapes. “The steel system is rated for super-heavy glass loads up to a 3,300 pound IGU,” Roberts reported. “The timber system helps reduce the embodied carbon and has the least amount of aluminum because the timber is actually taking a big part of the wind load. The glazing pockets are shipped from Germany and the timber is local. Our preferred path to further reduce the carbon footprint is to source glass locally through Garibaldi Glass.” 

“The Butterfly is a beautiful building in downtown Vancouver by Westbank,” said Robert. “Very fancy condos. They have a 50-meter-long pool where the glazing system is essentially a five-sided glass box. It is supported by GFRC ribs on the inside, which makes you feel like you’re on the inside a whale. We used silicone gaskets on this project to do all the joinery. RDH did a significant amount of testing and everything passed beautifully.” •

Rich Porayko is business development director for Fenestration Canada Commercial