Page/ Investigate Glazing: Wall Ratios on Higher Ed Building

STAGE: Schematic Design

Page/ is a leading design firm and hugely influential for design across multiple sectors. The Higher Ed teams provide design solutions that are particularly responsive to program, site, con-text, and economics. In fact, Page/academic ranked 13 of 110 University Giants by BuildingDesign + Construction 2016.

Project

Part of a campus masterplan in the north-eastern part of Houston TX, this building had a fixed orientation.

Using a single day of peak solar load, the designers experimented with the implications of a range of glass to wall ratios – from 10 % to 90% – while exporting data to FenestraPro Snapshots to comparatively analyse the results.

Consideration was given to the Prescriptive Energy Codes IECC-2015 and the threshold where shading became beneficial to graphically demonstrate differing options, and give information for future proposals.

Summary

Carried out by an Energy Analyst as part of the design team, this exercise led to deeply-informed decisions for the design project. This investigation using glass to wall ratio, which can often take days, was carried out in a matter of hours, and informed the team of limits and opportunities of varying glazing solutions for each façade.