04/11/2025
As climate change intensifies and building energy codes evolve, the thermal resilience of our buildings and performance of building envelopes have become critical to architectural design. In the Main Stage session “Face it: The imperative of increasing indoor thermal resilience and façade thermal performance,” Helen Sanders, general manager of Technoform, moderates a discussion of thermal resilience and high-performance design with panelists Edlyn Garcia La Torre, senior facade consultant, Stantec; Ivan Lee, senior building science engineer, Stantec; and Erik Olsen, managing partner of Transsolar KlimaEngineering. Panelists explored the intersections of climate-focused design strategies, passive survivability for building resilience, and compliance with more stringent energy codes.
"The future is more about thermal autonomy. How can we design for thermal autonomy only? Overall thermal resilience, including glass, we must look at each of the climates you're designing for. Solar radiation is also a big factor. With glass you either let solar radiation in as needed or block it. This must be considered at the start of design." - Edlyn Garcia La Torre
