The design and installation/construction of the building envelopes should be sustainable, cost effective and done in such a way that will give room for easy maintenance in the future as this will make our built environment safe and lively.

Characteristics of Building Envelopes

Building envelopes should be well designed to cater for cooling, heating, ventilating and natural lighting effectively. Proper design of building envelopes will also reduce energy consumption and thereby saving cost.

Building envelopes’ designs should conform with the following

• Should provide structural support to be able to transfer load down to the foundations.
• Should have good aesthetic views.
• Should be able to withstand the weather (such as extreme temperatures etc.) of the region where they are being put up.

Hence,

Building envelopes should be:

Thermally comfortable for the buildings’ occupiers;

Visually appealing;

Sustainable; and

Cost effective.

Factors that affect building envelopes

The building envelope is to provide comfort, safety, security to both people and assets and contribute to the overall building performance.

The following factors will impact the performance of a building envelope

• Poor design
• Use of sub-standard materials
• Poor workmanship
• Natural disaster