Double Skin Curtain Wall System

The double-skin facade is a system of building consisting of two skins, or facades, placed in such a way that air flows in the intermediate cavity. The ventilation of the cavity can be natural, fan supported or mechanical. Apart from the type of the ventilation inside the cavity, the origin and destination of the air can differ depending mostly on climatic conditions, the use, the location, the occupational hours of the building and the HVAC strategy.

The glass skins can be single or double glazing units with a distance from 20 cm up to 2 metres. Often, for protection and heat extraction reasons during the cooling period, solar shading devices are placed inside the cavity.

Technical Details

The cavity between the two skins may be either naturally or mechanically ventilated. In cool climates the solar gain within the cavity may be circulated to the occupied space to offset heating requirements, while in hot climates the cavity may be vented out of the building to mitigate solar gain and decrease the cooling load. In each case the assumption is that a higher insinuative value may be achieved by using this glazing configuration versus a conventional glazing configuration.

Recent studies showed that the energy performance of a building connected to a double-skin facade can be improved both in the cold and the warm season or in cold and warm climates by optimizing the ventilation strategy of the facade.