MPP Facades

This project is funded through a Wood Innovation Grant and proposes retrofitting existing multi-family housing buildings with a new envelope system that can be applied directly over the existing facade.

Within the west coast lies the Cascadia subduction zone which has a return period of 400-600 years. We are due for a catastrophic earthquake at any moment.

We are facing a housing shortage yet the older multifamily homes available do not often meet the needs of the climate The PNW is located in a zone that faces warm summers and cold winters which means we aren’t designing for one condition – we have to address multiple conditions at once.

How do we get the most out a retrofit?
When we overlay the climate zone and seismic zone, we get these intersecting issues that are unique to the west coast. We must consider both seismic and climate related solutions when we are designing
This was part of the inspiration for this Wood Innovation Grant: how do we tackle energy performance and seismic performance in buildings that are in serious need of both? We need to get the most out of our systems in order to optimize what is existing including the locality of materials and types of industries in the area.

Energiesprong was part of the inspiration for this grant; they are a Dutch-based organization dedicated to transforming pre-existing multifamily housing into net-zero systems.

This project all starts from healthy, well-managed forests The construction industry uses immense amounts of wood so it is critical that start with forest stewardship in mind and consider the building process as a whole rather than looking at it as a single sequence within the lifetime of a building.