"Double Skin" Computerized Facade Allows Skyscraper to Breathe

The engineers of the Westarkade, a colorful high-rise that officially opened in Frankfurt in July, show that you don't need to seal yourself in to live green.

The 15-story glass tower glows with natural light and offers windows that open—a comfort that can wreak havoc with energy efficiency. But the Westarkade's first-of-a-kind "pressure ring" facade and sophisticated, sensor-rich control scheme promise to consume no more than 100 kilowatt-hours of energy per square meter per year. That would make it a world-class energy miser, using half as much energy as a conventional office building in Europe and as little as a third of the U.S. average.

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