How Balcony Design Can Impact Building Sustainability
Better Balconies offers a comprehensive look at the technical aspects of balcony design
Sector: Commercial & Residential
Increase Comfort and Performance in the
Urban Habitat
Elevating spaces, empowering places
Transform your ambitious visions into reality. Create or revitalize community spaces and places that harmonize with the climate and maximize performance. With our climate and building-performance insights you can maximize mixed-use experiences, create office spaces that captivate and engage tenants, and provide meaningful places for residents and visitors to the community.
We help you navigate complex multi-disciplinary local processes and efficiently meet environmental compliance requirements. With our support you can target and achieve decarbonization and sustainability goals, take advantage of opportunities and manage unique environmental risks. We help deliver comfortable, high-performance spaces that stand out in the market, all while staying on time and within budget.
Addressing commercial & residential challenges
Cities are constantly changing, driven both by expansion (outward and upward) as well as revitalization from within. Addressing these issues requires innovative planning, design, construction, and operations that prioritizes sustainable development and cohesive community design. The best practitioners have relied upon RWDI for decades gaining support that allows them to make their vision a reality.
The right insights at the right time
From planning to development and daily operations, we have the right experience and expertise to solve any building project challenge. Explore services for every stage of the building lifecycle.
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Planning
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Design
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Construction
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Operations
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Renovation
thermal comfort CFD
Services
- Environmental air quality, water, soil, waste
- Pedestrian wind, thermal comfort & safety
- Noise & vibration
- Energy, sustainability & wellness goals
How we help
We collaborate and support your vision with technical expertise across every climate and performance engineering discipline. Create more resilient buildings that exist in harmony with their environment and community.
Unlock significant cost savings
We’re a collaborative of critical specialties offering our customers a unique one-stop project consultant. By centralizing specialty services for your building design or retrofit project, you will streamline project budgets and timelines and save costs on multiple consultants and unlock synergies between disciplines.
Navigate regulatory compliance with confidence
Our regulatory knowledge is unparallelled in the industry. We help you navigate complex local processes and fulfill multi-disciplinary compliance requirements with ease and accuracy. Avoid delays and potential legal issues with the most trusted experts.
Ensure safety and integrity
Our Climate Labs provide the most comprehensive analysis of wind loads helping you create resilient, high-performance buildings and infrastructure. Our specialized expertise including enclosures reducing risk of failure, ensure your projects can withstand any environmental conditions.
Create comfortable and safe spaces
Our Climate Labs provide state-of-the-art building analysis in wind engineering, climate analysis, and microclimate. Optimize the interplay of wind, sun, humidity, precipitation and temperature to create spaces that are comfortable to be in year-round and pleasant to experience.
Achieve your decarbonization goals
Our sustainability experts can help you create environmentally friendly buildings that meet or exceed green, healthy and resilient building standards, enhancing your brand reputation while managing climate risks. Set and achieve decarbonization goals, green building standards like LEED, reduce energy use, increase water efficiency, and manage emissions to reduce your carbon footprint or reach net-zero goals, we do it all.
Foster neighborhood integration and community connection
We combine local knowledge with global experience to help you build in a way that enhances the intricate fabric of a neighborhood. With the right engineering insights, you can improve community relations and even increase property value.
Holistic engineering solutions
Building design challenges are complex. Our holistic suite of services offers climate responsive design and human-centric solutions that maximize performance while minimizing impact.
wind tunnel testing
technician taking measurements in the field
wind CFD
sensors on scale model of building
wind tunnel testing
Wind engineering for buildings
As cities grow vertically, wind engineering becomes crucial for all building projects. Our Climate Labs assess the impact of wind on structural integrity, occupant comfort, and overall building performance. This service is particularly important for high-risk, high-performance projects in dense or varied urban environments. By understanding wind behavior around structures, we help you optimize your building design, enhance safety, and reduce long-term operational costs. Our expertise allows developers to push the boundaries of architectural design while ensuring the buildings meet stringent performance and safety standards. As world leaders in wind engineering, we have guided the design of eight of the world’s 10 tallest buildings.
technician taking measurements in the field
Environmental approvals
We conduct thorough planning, permitting and environmental approvals for clients redeveloping in dense, complex urban realms. Our depth of capabilities in air, water, soil, noise, vibration, and waste allows us to identify potential environmental risks, such as contamination from historical land uses, and develop appropriate remediation strategies. By navigating complex regulations leveraging and collaborating with specialists, we help clients mitigate risks, avoid costly clean-ups, and ensure compliance with local standards. Our regulatory knowledge is unparalleled in the industry.
wind CFD
Microclimate studies
Microclimate studies, pedestrian wind, pedestrian comfort, urban heat island, and urban/natural ventilation, solar and daylight assessment are increasingly required for regulatory compliance. We conduct detailed assessments of how new buildings will affect local environmental conditions, including wind patterns, temperature, air quality. We simplify the process of obtaining planning with regulations, mitigate potential negative impacts on the surrounding area, and create more comfortable and sustainable urban spaces to maximum activation throughout the year.
sensors on scale model of building
Integrated building performance optimization
We offer a unique advantage by integrating various aspects of building performance. We combine our expertise in wind engineering, energy efficiency, and enclosures to provide a holistic approach to optimizing building performance. Our Climate Labs gives comprehensive analysis on structural integrity, energy consumption, occupant comfort, and environmental sustainability. By offering this comprehensive service, we eliminate the need for multiple consultants, streamlining the design and development process. This integrated approach is particularly valuable for complex projects where multiple performance factors need to be balanced to achieve optimal results.
Asia Pacific
Pearl River Tower
Advanced wind engineering for a supertall skyscraper that generates its own wind power
Europe & UK
Newfoundland
A wide range of studies to verify safety and optimization for this eye-catching addition to London’s Canary Wharf
Asia Pacific
International Commerce Centre
Helping the tallest building in Hong Kong efficiently withstand typhoons
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FAQs about our commercial & residential building services
Still have questions? Contact us.
Yes, RWDI supports clients through complex zoning, code compliance, and permitting processes across a wide range of environmental and performance domains. Our team provides expert guidance on issues related to air quality, water management, soil contamination, waste, solar access, wind impacts, and noise control. We help clients navigate municipal requirements and environmental regulations, offering the technical analysis and documentation needed to secure approvals efficiency.
Yes, we help clients meet carbon reduction targets by assessing current building performance and implementing cost-effective upgrades, like electrification, envelope retrofits, renewable energy integration, and low-carbon materials. Our work aligns with ESG reporting frameworks and increases long-term asset value. From establishing baselines, targets, implementation, measurement and documentation support, we have experience in every step of decarbonization or low carbon planning and implementation.
Wind engineering is essential for occupant comfort and structural safety in high-rises. We use wind tunnel testing and computational analysis to inform façade design, mitigate downdrafts and wind tunnel effects at street level, and improve comfort on balconies, terraces, and podium roofs.
We optimize building envelopes, HVAC systems, and glazing to enhance thermal comfort and reduce energy use across seasons. Our data-driven approach balances energy efficiency with indoor environmental quality, ensuring occupants stay comfortable while helping buildings meet performance standards and sustainability certifications.
We assess ventilation systems, filtration, and occupant behavior to design healthy indoor environments. Whether for new builds or retrofits, we improve air change rates, manage humidity, and reduce airborne contaminants—supporting wellness, productivity, and long-term resilience in densely occupied spaces.
Yes, we offer full-spectrum building commissioning services, including new, existing, re-commissioning, retro-commissioning, and continuous analytics. Our expertise in building science, HVAC performance, MEP systems, envelope systems, and sustainability, ensure all components perform to design intent and deliver long-term efficiency, comfort, and durability. We help clients meet certification goals (LEED, WELL, etc.), reduce operating costs, and maintain high-performance standards throughout the building lifecycle.
Yes, we have worked on projects on almost every continent including North America, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific, and Australia.
We design acoustical solutions that minimize sound transmission between units, floors, and shared spaces—critical in residential and commercial developments. Using advanced modeling and material strategies, we address airborne and impact noise to enhance tenant comfort and support building performance targets.
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