Best Practice for Double Skin Facades The BESTFACADE Project

Double skin facades have become a major architectural element in office buildings over the last 15years. A double skin facade can provide a thermal buffer zone, solar preheating of ventilation air,energy savings, sound protection, wind and pollutant protection with open windows and nocturnalcooling. Commercial buildings with integrated double skin facade can be very energy efficientbuildings with all the good qualities listed above.However not all double skin facades built in the last years perform well. The BESTFACADE project issupported by the Intelligent Energy Europe Program of the European Community and will activelypromote the concept of double skin facades. A best practice guideline of double skin facades will becreated. It will be based on a comprehensive survey of double skin facades in Europe. Information onbuilt examples of double skin facades in European office buildings will be collected, investigated andassessed. Non-technological barriers will be analysed and strategies to overcome them will bepresented. A simple calculation method to estimate the energy demand and comfort parameters willbe developed.