Priya Nair · 7 min read
The slab edge is the project
Vision glass gets the rendering. Transoms, anchors, and slab edges decide whether the wall meets its U-value and stays dry inside.
Clients remember the glass. Physicists remember the slab edge. A curtain wall that meets its centre-of-glass U-value and then bleeds heat through every transom and anchor will miss its energy model, risk condensation, and disappoint occupants on the first cold week.
We model three-dimensional heat flow at typical and worst-case details, then change the detail — thermal breaks, insulation alignment, cover-cap geometry — until the number and the drawing agree. In marine and mixed climates we add hygrothermal analysis so that a “warm” detail is not storing moisture in the wrong place.
Title 24 compliance in California is a floor, not a ceiling. Clients who intend to hold a building for decades ask us to design the envelope as if energy and comfort will only get more expensive. They are right.
Questions about applying this on a live project: contact the practice or write invoice@verticea.online.
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