Photos: Arate CommunicationsKey Takeaways:
While investigative expertise is essential for existing buildings, its value extends even further when integrated early in the design process. Engaging enclosure specialists during programming and schematic design allows project team stakeholders to anticipate risks before they are embedded into construction.
Early collaboration helps align enclosure strategies with operational realities, including internal humidity levels, pressurization requirements, and potential future use changes. It also supports informed decision-making around system selection, detailing complexity and long-term maintenance implications.
By proactively addressing enclosure performance, stakeholders can reduce downstream risk, avoid costly retrofits, and deliver buildings better equipped to perform over time. However, even early insight delivers limited value without disciplined execution and field verification.
Even the most thoughtful designs can fail without proper execution. Construction administration and verification testing play a critical role in ensuring that enclosure performance goals are met before assemblies are concealed.
Air and water testing, along with on-site observation, provide opportunities to identify deficiencies early—when corrections are still feasible. This proactive oversight helps prevent latent defects that might otherwise emerge years later, long after warranties have expired and disruptions become unavoidable. Ensuring lasting enclosure performance ultimately requires extending this same rigor beyond construction and into long-term stewardship.
Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of enclosure performance is maintenance planning. Many institutions address issues only as they arise rather than following structured, long-term strategies.
A comprehensive maintenance plan begins with a holistic evaluation of existing conditions and establishes priorities across immediate, mid-term, and long-term horizons. Regular inspections, documented observations, and scheduled interventions allow owners to address minor issues before they escalate into major failures.
This disciplined approach not only reduces lifecycle costs but also minimizes operational disruption—an outcome particularly critical for healthcare and academic environments. Together, these practices point toward a broader shift in how institutional owners define, manage, and protect enclosure performance.
As institutional buildings face mounting environmental, operational, and financial pressures, the margin for error in enclosure design and maintenance continues to narrow. What appears to be a localized defect often reflects a more profound systemic vulnerability—one that requires informed investigation, proactive planning, and sustained attention.
By shifting from reactive repair to performance-driven design and long-term maintenance strategies, project stakeholders can protect not only their facilities, but also the people, programs, and missions those buildings support—diagnosing the invisible before it becomes unavoidable.
Kevin Dunham, PE, is Principal, Investigative Engineering with Martin/Martin Consulting.
Identifying and Preventing Building Enclosure Failures
Building Enclosure Performance Starts With Proactive Planning
