The Skyscraper Museum is devoted to the study of high-rise building, past, present, and future. The Museum explores tall buildings as objects of design, products of technology, sites of construction, investments in real estate, and places of work and residence. This site will look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.
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Shading Coefficient The ratio of solar
heat gain through a glazing system to the solar heat gain through a single
layer of clear glass.
Sick Building Syndrome - According
to the Environmental Protection Agency and National Institute of Occupational
Safety and Health, Sick Building Syndrome is defined as “situations
in which building occupants experience acute health and/or comfort effects
that appear to be linked to time spent in a particular building, but where
no specific illness or cause can be identified. The complaints may be localized
in a particular room or zone, or may be spread throughout the building.”
Solar Collector A device used
to absorb heat from the sun. In the context of buildings, the absorbed energy
typically heats water, which is then used for space heating and/or domestic
hot water.
Spectrally Selective Glazing Glazing
that has a high transmittance of visible light but low transmittance of
solar heat gain.
Superwindow
A window with a very low U-value achieved through the use of multiple
glazings, low-e coatings, and gas fills. A gas fill is the use of an inert
gas, usually Argon or Krypton, placed between sealed panes of glazing in
order to provide resistance to heat flow.
Sustainability The concept of
sustainability can be traced back to President Theodore Roosevelt who stated
in 1910, “ I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop
and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right
to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after
us. ” In 1987 the United Nations World Commission on Environment and
Development (The Brundtland Commission) defined a sustainable development
as one that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Sustainability
has three interdependent dimensions relating to the environment, economics
and society—often referred to as the triple bottom line.
