Last week I saw a bumper sticker on a huge black SUV: “There’s more to life than gas mileage.” This is true. While fenestration is responsible for a great deal of energy use (solar gain in summer, heat loss in winter, air infiltration around frames), the daylight and connection to the outdoors that windows provide is essential for our health and well-being.

Another thing that’s important for our health and well-being is mitigating the accelerating effects of climate change, and super-efficient buildings are the easiest way to do that. However, some commenters worry that constructing zero net energy buildings will mean living with “… tiny little windows, little windows so you can’t see out, can’t see the light,” to quote a recent president.

To keep from being stuck with those “little tiny windows,” we all know some performance boosts like warm edge spacers, thermal breaks, and fourth-surface low-e coatings. Beyond that, talk of triple glazing always raises hackles, but alternative technologies are emerging. LBNL has developed a “thin triple,” inserting a very thin center pane in the thickness of a typical double-pane unit. Vacuum insulated glass and several varieties of dynamic glazing are emerging. While these newer options might be beyond typical project budgets today, glazing is inevitably going to get more complex, and it’s essential to have NFRC keeping track of how all these perform.

For an entire century, architects have dreamed of buildings that are all glass, wall to wall and floor to ceiling, which turns out to be good for magazine covers but not much else. Strategic sizing and placement of glazing to optimize energy as well as comfort, daylight, and views for the occupants will require breaking out of the old all-glass mentality, which itself might require a new generation of architects. To quote Mark Frankel: “That which exists must be possible,” so if you want to see what the Zero Net Energy future looks like, start by checking out the hundreds of ZNE buildings that already exist, and then make your own even better.

Information on some of the new technologies may be found in the NFRC "Emerging Trends and Technology" webinar series. Visit the NFRC store for the titles and access to the webinars.