ENAE609-26X (C) General non-calendar-based 2026

Building Envelope Design and Engineering

This occurrence is not offered in 2026

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 6 April 2026
End Date: Sunday, 21 June 2026
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 19 April 2026
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 31 May 2026

Description

Building envelope design philosophy, strategies and practice. Heat, light and airflow through envelopes. Form, function, performance and value of facades. High-performance envelopes for resilient and sustainable buildings.

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to building envelope design. Students will learn and apply façade design and engineering principles and multidisciplinary design and research methods to the critical assessment and design of building envelopes. The course covers process and technical aspects of building envelope design at the various phases of a building project; project initiation, concept and preliminary design, developed and detailed design, and construction. Learning includes team design projects.

The course covers the following topics:

• Design trends and historical development.
• Façade performance parameters and forces.
• Systems, materials and fabrication.
• Weather protection and thermal envelopes
• Logistics (installation and fabrication)
• Specification and procurement
• Assessing systems
• New Zealand Building Code compliance
• High-performance envelopes

Learning Outcomes

  • Independently gathering, analysing and synthesising state of the art knowledge and relevant information required to develop solutions to building envelope design problems.

  • Identifying, developing, evaluating and critically assessing potential solutions to complex building envelope design problems, considering relative feasibility, benefits, limitations and environmental impacts of different solutions.

  • Developing and communicating concept and preliminary designs for building envelopes that respond to multiple performance objectives.

  • Selecting building envelope components, assemblies and systems that meet structure, energy, lighting, moisture, airflow and acoustic performance requirements using a variety of materials, including glass, aluminium, steel, concrete and timber.

Prerequisites

Subject to approval of the Head of Department

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Larry Bellamy

Guest Lecturer

John Hawkins (Mott MacDonald)

Assessment

1 Façade Concept Design
Percentage of final grade: 35%

2 Failure Resolution and Code Compliance
Percentage of final grade: 25%

3 Façade Developed Design
Percentage of final grade: 40%

Textbooks / Resources

All required course material will be provided to students.

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $1,344.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Civil and Environmental Engineering .

All ENAE609 Occurrences

  • ENAE609-26X (C) General non-calendar-based 2026 - Not Offered
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