In drawings, cladding systems look simple — a clean panel grid, crisp joints, sharp edges, tight alignment. But once the system leaves the page and meets tolerances, structure, movement, and weather, reality takes over.
Cladding isn’t decoration.
It’s part of the building envelope — and when it isn’t engineered as a system, problems don’t just become expensive. They become persistent.
At Architectural Wall Systems, cladding system engineering isn’t about matching a detail to a product catalog. It’s about ensuring panels, supports, anchors, and waterproofing behave as one integrated assembly — one that performs through wind, thermal cycling, drift, and decades of maintenance.
A façade that only matches the spec may look right.
A façade that performs in real conditions is engineered right.
That’s where we work.
Most cladding failures don’t come from bad materials.
They come from:
The spec can’t solve those problems — because they aren’t product issues.
They’re system behavior issues.
And system behavior is driven by engineering.
Our approach to exterior cladding systems focuses on how the wall moves, drains, and carries load over time — not how it looks the day it’s installed.
Cladding systems don’t operate in isolation.
They interact directly with:
If those interactions aren’t engineered up front, they’ll be discovered later — usually during testing or after occupancy.
We don’t design components.
We design the building envelope system around the way each component behaves.
That’s what separates façade design from façade engineering.
Panels don’t fail because they look wrong — they fail because load doesn’t go where it was supposed to.
So we start with the load path.
We analyze:
We make sure load travels cleanly:
Panel → Sub-Frame → Anchor → Structure
If the path relies on friction, improvisation, or wishful thinking — it’s not engineered.
Our role as façade consultants and cladding engineers is to remove guesswork before the mock-up, before the RFIs, before the field discovers the weak point.
Engineering early is always cheaper than engineering late.
Rainscreen systems are not sealed walls.
They are pressure-managed drainage systems, and they only work when:
A rainscreen that “looks tight” but can’t drain is a failure waiting to graduate into a warranty claim.
We design rainscreens to:
Because a rainscreen that depends on perfection in the field isn’t a system — it’s a gamble.
Cladding cost is rarely in the panel price.
It lives in:
Our work reduces:
Lean engineering isn’t cost-cutting.
It’s designing only what the building needs, and proving why.
That’s the foundation of our Engineer TRUE™ philosophy.
We see the impact of disciplined cladding engineering across sectors:
Healthcare projects where moisture tolerance margins are razor-thin.
Civic and cultural institutions with complex envelope geometry.
Commercial high-rises where envelope performance drives lifecycle cost.
Higher-education and research buildings where movement matters as much as aesthetics.
Projects where Architectural Wall Systems engineered system-level performance include:
Texas Children’s Hospital: Cladding + curtain wall engineered around healthcare performance criteria.
Denver Art Museum: Complex geometry resolved through coordinated façade and cladding behavior.
Stanford Energy Facility: Envelope system engineered for drift, movement, and thermal cycling.
1920 McKinney: High-efficiency façade engineered for long-term serviceability.
Success for us isn’t a completed installation.
Success is a wall that still performs when the warranties are old.
Teams don’t bring us in to make drawings prettier.
They bring us in because they want:
We don’t design walls that only look complete.
We design cladding systems that behave like engineered systems — because that’s what keeps buildings working long after the punchwalk.
What is cladding system engineering?
Cladding system engineering ensures that panels, anchors, framing, and waterproofing work together as part of the building envelope — carrying load, managing movement, and draining water safely over time.
How is cladding different from curtain wall?
Curtain wall is a structural framing and glazing system, while cladding is an exterior panel system — both must be engineered together to share load, movement, and drainage paths.
Why do cladding systems fail?
Cladding systems typically fail due to overstressed anchors, trapped thermal movement, poor drainage geometry, or load paths that were never engineered at the system level.
Who engineers cladding systems?
Cladding systems are engineered by façade consultants and building envelope engineers who analyze structural behavior, drainage paths, anchor performance, and long-term serviceability.
Panels may define a façade’s appearance.
But performance lives in:
load transfer
movement compatibility
drainage continuity
and details that behave the same in the field as they do on paper
At Architectural Wall Systems, cladding system engineering isn’t about assembling parts.
It’s about designing a building envelope system that keeps performing — project after project, decade after decade.