Assessment of double skin façade technologies for office refurbishments in the United Kingdom

There is a growing tendency towards use of Double-Skin Façades (DSFs) for office buildings in Europe. The potentialities this technology has range from acting as thermal buffer to innovative application of natural ventilation. It is still a developing research field identifying what are the most determinant architectural parameters for optimal uses of DSF. This research focuses on applying DSFs to refurbishment of buildings, which has a bigger market than new builds. Knowledge on how to select suitable DSF systems for refurbishments is scarce due to the additional constraints of existing buildings thus narrowing the number of options. This paper reports the initial findings of the first stage of a comprehensive research, with the aim to establish an assessment methodology and a tool to identify suitable DSF systems for the refurbishment of office buildings in the UK. The assessment methodology proposed here allows to determine a group of suitable DSF technologies for each of the UK office types identified. The tool has been tested with real refurbishments case studies, which showed coherent and consistent results.