What do a ‘freakish baseball pitcher’ and current building designs have in common?

What does a “freakish baseball pitcher” have to do with current building design, you may ask? When interviewed for the Façade Tectonics Institute’s (FTI) market barriers study, Ted Kesik, PhD, a professor at the University of Toronto and façade consultant, created an apt baseball analogy to describe the unbalanced performance of façades and HVAC systems in many of today’s buildings. He described buildings that often end up with oversized HVAC systems and poor-performing façades as “like a Major League Baseball pitcher with one freakishly muscular throwing arm and the rest of the body just flab.” 

The situation stems from the fact that building design in the U.S. is typically HVAC-driven. The FTI study identified several causes of this dynamic. These causes present systemic barriers to implementing and cost-effectiveness of high-performance fenestration and façade systems.

Read full blog to learn more.