Examination of building physics problems associated with translucent and transparent facades cases from Mersin

From the early eras of architectural history, the shells that define both interior and exterior spaces have been shaped by the physiological, perceptual, psychological and sociological needs or desires of users. All of these inputs also have a dual relationship with developments in construction and material technology by being both followed by and affecting them. The need of getting natural light into spaces and having a visual connection with the context, and the developments in construction technology mainly during manifestation of the modern movement led to a vast expanse of diversification in translucent or transparent facade systems. Still many facade systems that have been built can not fulfill performance requirements through their lifetime because of external agencies such as solar radiation, changes in temperature, moisture, pollution or lack of knowledge/applications. This study aims to investigate how these translucent and transparent facades that have been built decay, what kind of problems occur after they are built and examination of these problems in the scope/perspective of building physics. In the aim of examining the building physics problems associated with translucent and transparent facade systems, the systems are classified based on how their elements come together so mainly considering their structural principles. After the classification of the systems, all the components and materials that are being used and the building physics problems that may occur are determined following the information provided from the literature review (presented at the 2nd and 3rd sections). The term "problem" has been used to describe both decays and errors that may occur on the systems. Thus qualification of the reasons behind the problems have been the origin to this distinction as also is in the literature. Because a need is seen to have a guide to inspect the problems, identify their causes and assess the state of the problems; two tables are created. One of the tables includes all the building physics problems that may occur presenting related components and materials and different codes are given to each problem in order to use in the second phase of the inspection (given in Section 4.1). The second phase of the inspection started with the selection of the area that will be searched for the case studies and this decision has been made considering the probable reasons behind the problems that have been determined earlier and their existence in the area (given in Section 4.2). After the selection of the area the second tables are prepared to apply on these cases. These tables aim to save/give information about the cases and consist of two parts; one of them introduces the buildings that will be examined to collect data, their facade systems and data about the context that are thought to cause the problems. The other part of the table includes the codes that have been given in the first table to inspect the problem(s) and cause(s), and also a section that shows the severity of the problem(s) presented in Section 4.3. The severity of the problems is determined based on a decision-making method called Analytic Hierarchy Process and the steps of this method are described in Section 4.4 with the details of how it has been applied in this study. All the inspections and diagnoses done at the field research presented in Section 5. Inspections done due to in situ visual observation and all the data that have been collected about both the buildings and the problems are provided from; building managers, architects, engineers, related personnel, contractor facade companies if any and the maps obtained from the Mersin Yenişehir Municipality. The tables were tested on three cases then were revised based on these tests. While using the tables for inspection, severity of the problems has been determined according to; performance criteria that the problem has affected (structural performance, thermal-vapour-water insulation, visual comfort), the scale of the problem (material, component, system), the tendency to aggravate of the problem, the tendency of causing another problem and the ease of rehabilitation. 15 building physics problems have been diagnosed and assessed at 9 buildings out of 50 that have been examined in Mersin, Yenişehir which is a settlement that is being constructed rapidly and in poor quality. At the last section the findings at case studies and the literature review have been discussed. As a result it can be stated that the most common building physics problem that have been inspected is staining at the infill panels and it is thought that this problem usually occurs in relation with UV exposure of the sealants in time. Comparing the severity of the problems, it has been seen that corrosion is mostly determined as a severe problem because of the performance requirement it affects and tendency to aggravate. Considering the number of the problems has been inspected at each of the component type it can be stated that infill components are the first on the list when sorted the most to less. It can be stated that exposure to sunlight which is an atmospheric agency has the biggest ratio in all the agencies that causes the problems which was an expected result due to climatic conditions of the selected area. Therefore it can be stated that this study proves that many transparent and translucent facade system fail to fulfill the performance requirements because of the building physics problems occurs on them. Additionally this study shows the reasons behind the problems that facades are facing are usually the atmospheric agencies even though they could have been prevented with design decisions at urban scale, building scale or detail scale. It is obvious that inspection and examination should have been done to plan the rehabilitation. This study can be used for planning the rehabilitation steps and deciding what kind of rehabilitation method is favorable and make prioritization possible if needed. The inspection and diagnosis tables can be used or improved for different contexts and more knowledge can be obtained for future studies.