Ventilation

Why do you need a ventilated facade mesh?

The majority of parking garages are required to have a facade screening to cover the quintessential “ugly” parking garage. However, it also must be maintained as open as well for ventilation. These two ideas often fight against each other.

For an open parking garage to be classified as an actual “open” per your specific building code/governance, you typically need a certain openness to the screening material.
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A mesh that has a specified opacity (or openness) to it allows for natural ventilation and maintains views through the screening material (e.g., if a mesh is specified at 34% open, it is 66% closed/solid).
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For example, in the US, the 2018 International Building Code (IBC) per IBC 406.5.2 requires a parking garage to have (Please refer to your specific code requirements):**
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**Note: The following diagram/requirements are provided for information purposes and does not constitute advice for building code. Please refer to your local building code for details specific to your location.

• The building must have openings on at least two sides.
• The openings must be uniformly distributed along each side.
• The area of openings in the exterior walls on any given tier must be at least equal to 20 percent of the wall area of the total perimeter of each tier.
• Unless the required openings are uniformly distributed over two opposing sides of the building, the aggregate length of openings considered to provide natural ventilation shall constitute a minimum of 40 percent of the wall length of the perimeter of that tier.
• The area of openings in the interior walls must be at least 20 percent of the area of the interior walls with openings uniformly distributed.