Windows for High Performance Commercial Buildings
   Home | Facade Design Tool | Overview | Case Studies | Tools & Resources | Contact Information

Case Studies

Phoenix Central Library

The Phoenix Central Library is an example of how a building can reflect its site and climate through different window and shading approaches on each orientation. The building effectively responds to the sun path of its particular latitude.

Seattle Justice Center

The Seattle Justice Center deals with a very restricted site where only the southwest orientation is available for windows. The response is an advanced double-envelope facade that provides a thermal buffer while allowing sunlight to penetrate deep into the building.

Debis Tower

The Debis Tower in Berlin is an example of another advanced facade concept, with an outer envelope of operable glass panels functioning as a thermal buffer when needed. The inner glass wall with operable windows provides excellent control and comfort for the occupants in a high-rise building.

Hoffmann-La Roche Office Building

The Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. Office Building in New Jersey uses several design strategies to bring daylight into a massive central core building. These include small interior atriums, light shelves, and prismatic glazing that transmits daylight to the building core.

Florida Solar Energy Center

The Florida Solar Energy Center reflects the use of glazing and daylighting techniques to reduce energy in a hot-humid climate. Light shelves, shading systems and skylights provide benefits that are documented by the researchers who inhabit the building.

Cambria Office Facility

The Cambria Office Facility in Pennsylvania demonstrates the benefits of integrated design. By using triple-glazed, high-performance windows, the designers eliminated perimeter heating and downsized the mechanical system. This more than offset the cost of improved windows and saved energy as well.

Xilinx Development Center

The designers of the Xilinx Development Center in Colorado had the freedom to extend the building on an east-west axis, resulting in mostly north- and south-facing windows that bring light and view into the perimeter spaces. An innovative light redirection device on the transoms reflects sunlight into the spaces.