Draft — pending studio review
Commercial · 5 min read
Why building orientation matters more than glazing specification
Tinted glass reduces heat gain after the fact. Orientation and shading, decided at the massing stage, reduce it before it exists — and keep doing so for the life of the building.
It's common for a commercial glazing spec to get treated as the primary defence against solar heat gain — a heavier tint, a lower-e coating, specified late in the process to compensate for a facade that wasn't oriented with the sun in mind.
Massing and orientation decided early do more of that work for free, and keep doing it for the building's lifetime without an ongoing cooling-energy cost. Deep verandahs, screening devices like a brise-soleil, and simply turning a facade away from the harshest exposure are structural decisions, not glazing decisions.
On Sector 82 Corporate Park, that ordering — massing and shading first, glazing spec last — was cited directly by tenants as a reason for choosing the building over comparable space nearby.