V2SF

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE VENTILATED DOUBLE FACADE CONCEPT

A ventilated double facade (VDF - named in the rest of this website Ventilated Double Facade) can be defined as a traditional single facade doubled inside or outside by a second, essentially glazed facade. Each of these two facades is commonly called a skin . A ventilated cavity - having a width which can range from several centimetres at the narrowest to several metres for the widest accessible cavities - is located between these two skins.
There exist facade concepts where the ventilation of the cavity is controllable, by fans and/or openings, and other facade concepts where this ventilation is not controllable . The indoor and outdoor skins are not necessarily airtight (see, for example, the " louver " type facades). Automated equipment, such as shading devices, motorised openings or fans, are most often integrated into the facade.
The main difference between a ventilated double facade and an airtight multiple glazing, whether or not integrating a shading device in the cavity separating the glazings, lies in the intentional and possibly controlled ventilation of the cavity of the VDF.

NORMATIVE REFERENCES

The European standard prEN 13119 : 2004 ´Curtain walling - terminology´ defines the terms ´curtain walling´ and ´double-skin facade´ (see §2.2 of the document named "Ventilated Double Facades - Classification & illustration of facade concepts" on this subject).
The latter definition makes no mention of the ventilation of the cavity located between the two skins of the double-skin facade. Therefore the term ´double-skin facade´ cannot be used indiscriminately to designate all of the facades considered within the framework of this study. For this reason, the terms ´Ventilated double facade´ or ´ventilated double-skin facade´ are proposed as a generic term designating all of the facades of this type.

AREA OF APPLICATION

Airtight multiple glazings like those described above are not regarded as ventilated double facades, and thus are not dealt with in this study.
In absolute terms, various facade concepts may be regarded as ventilated double facades, including :