Building Exterior

You've heard of "pushing the envelope" - but what about "designing the envelope?" Architects cleverly combined three technologies to make the building envelope (exterior surface) energy efficient. Extended concrete ledges help block the sun's rays on the East and West sides of the buildings. In sunny North Carolina, this kind of architectural sun shading is key! In addition, the "low-E", low emissivity, windows are specially coated and filled with Argon gas to insulate and reflect solar heat, while allowing daylight to pass through.

Reflective, white roofing was also used to limit heat absorption. The white roof and light-colored exterior walls increase the building's albedo, significantly lowering air conditioning costs. In addition to these architectural features, trees surrounding the building were left in place for shade.