Tag Archives: Curtain wall

Canadian Museum for Human Rights: Project details

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is rooted in humanity, making visible in the architecture the fundamental commonality of humankind—a symbolic apparition of ice, clouds, and stone set in a field of sweet grass. Carved into the earth and dissolving into the sky on the Winnipeg horizon, the abstract ephemeral wings of a white dove embrace a mythic stone mountain of 450-million-year-old Tyndall limestone in the creation of a unifying and timeless landmark for all nations and cultures of the world.

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Glazing performance and sustainable design

Glazing is an integral part of modern design. From a thermal standpoint, glazing and its structure or frame is the weakest point of a wall assembly.1 A double-glazed vinyl window with argon’s U-factor (i.e. thermal transmittance) is typically around 3 W/(m2 K). This means the window will gain or lose around 3 W per m2 per degree Celsius. An efficient fibreglass window system’s U-factor can be as low as 1 W/(m2 K). An aluminum curtain wall system can range as high as 4 W/(m2 K). On the other hand, the U-factor of a 152-mm (6-in.) steel stud, with batt and exterior continuous insulation, can be around 0.4 W/(m2 K).

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