However, it was found that these regulations do not cover all key project requirements. In Singapore, sustainability and buildability regulations have been in place for several years. Įach country may have different guidelines and legal responsibilities for sustainability and buildability in building design. In brief, sustainability is a balance of social and economic activities and the environment, while buildability points to an ability to construct a building efficiently, economically and to agreed quality levels using its construction resources. The project requirements can be referred to as criteria for achieving sustainability and buildability in building envelope design. Building envelopes have played an important role the success of private high-rise residential building projects, and this highlights the importance of assessment and selection of the building envelope materials and designs that can satisfy project requirements. Their performance affects, for example, occupant comfort and productivity, energy use, strength, durability, fire resistance, and aesthetics appeal of a building. Main contributions of using this tool are achievement of a more efficient assessment of the building envelopes and more sustainable and buildable building envelope design.īuilding envelope systems, as the interface between interior space and exterior environment, generally serve the function of weather and pollution exclusion and thermal and sound insulation.

The results from a qualitative data analysis suggested that the tool allowed the design team to effectively find a balance between the tradeoffs among the criteria when assessing multiple building envelope design alternatives. A building design team was engaged to test the tool with the aim to evaluate usefulness of the tool in managing the tradeoffs among the sustainability and buildability criteria. This also included development of the tool using a Quality Functional Deployment (QFD) approach combined with fuzzy set theory. Literature reviews were conducted to investigate a comprehensive set of the sustainability and buildability criteria. The main objective of this study is to build such a tool to facilitate a building design team to take into account sustainability and buildability criteria for assessment of building envelopes of high-rise residential buildings in Singapore. WJE experts combine state-of-the-art testing equipment with decades of hands-on experience in the field to diagnose and solve problems in both contemporary and historic structures, helping clients achieve a successful overall building performance without compromising aesthetic features.Sustainability and buildability requirements in building envelope design have significantly gained more importance nowadays, yet there is a lack of an appropriate decision support system (DSS) that can help a building design team to incorporate these requirements and manage their tradeoffs at once. Our services range from the design and construction of water-tight, energy-efficient, and high-performance building enclosures to the investigation of existing facade and roof assemblies. Our engineers and architects draw on extensive in-house laboratory capabilities in WJE's Janney Technical Center as well as our company’s interdisciplinary knowledge to develop comprehensive, cost-effective, and technically sound repair and restoration strategies for facade, roofing, and waterproofing systems-routinely tailoring our services to meet the specific needs of a project or client. We have decades of industry-leading research and testing experience with building enclosure materials and systems of all ages, material compositions, and construction types. As a leading provider of consulting services for a variety of enclosure engineering issues, we have extensive expertise and resources to provide comprehensive, practical, and innovative solutions for new and existing facade assemblies and other building enclosure systems.

Elizabeth Cassin, Principal, Associate Executive Director of Project Operations, and Midwest Region Directorīuilding owners, managers, contractors, and architects turn to WJE when they need a firm that fully understands the aesthetic and functional performance requirements for their building enclosure systems. 'Because WJE understands building performance issues and how enclosures can fail, we're able to help design and construct building enclosures that are higher performing and more sustainable.'

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