New guide for skylight selection, daylighting design released

The Fenestration and Glazing Industry Alliance (FGIA) has released a new document for guidance in selecting skylights and on designing daylighting features.

AAMA SKY-3-20, Skylight Selection and Daylighting Design Guide including Unit Skylights, Tubular Daylight Devices (TDD) and Sloped Glazing, was developed in 2020. The 51-page document is now available as a complimentary download.

“This document is intended to assist the user in understanding the nature of fenestration products and systems which provide features and performance characteristics necessary for effective use on sloped or horizontal building envelope surfaces,” said John Westerfield (CrystaLite), chair of the FGIA Skylight Sloped Glazing Marketing Committee, in a news release.

The new guide is part of a suite of documents to assist with the proper design, selection, specification, and use of skylights. Other skylight documents from FGIA include:

• AAMA PSSG, Selection and Application Guide for Plastic Glazed Skylights and Sloped Glazing

• AAMA 1607, Voluntary Installation Guidelines for Unit Skylights

• TIR-A7, Sloped Glazing Guidelines

• AAMA SSGPG-1, Structural Silicone Glazing (SSG) Design Guidelines

• AAMA GDSG-1, Glass Design for Sloped Glazing and Skylights

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.