Dark times ahead for the all-glass office

摘要

Architects have had a long love affair with fully glazed office buildings, but after 2010 they might need to find new ways to satisfy their desire for crisp, clean transparent boxes. One of the little talked about changes in the consultation document for Part L is the introduction of limits on solar gains. In the current regulations these are only applied to naturally ventilated buildings to demonstrate that they don't overheat and avoid the situation of tenants installing cooling once they've occupied the building.