Conference Agenda

This research presents a study of Functionalistic Nordic housing by appraising the Regenerative Sustainable Design qualities of four projects built before the energy crisis of the 1970s and by comparing them to four projects created after the year 2000 when Sustainable Design became an explicit target, and the concept of Regenerative Design was not widespread. The functionalist projects are Erskine’s Box, Aalto's Helsinki House, Jacobsen's, Gotfred Rodes Vej House, and Korsmo's Planetveien House. The recent case studies selected are AART Architects’ Home for Life, Henning Larsen’s Adaptable House, Rune’s Tind Prefabricated House and Kaminsky Architecture’s Villa Nyborg. The Regenerative Design Sustainable Features of the case studies are studied qualitatively considering aspects such as Biophilia, Salutogenesis, Human Centric Design and quantitatively analysing Daylighting Distribution, Operational and Embodied Energy. Site visits, literature review, and computer simulation are the used methods.

Smart materials are often studied in architecture due to their internal changeable properties stimulated by various material-specific input or operating factors. Meanwhile, climate-adaptive facades have been investigated for design and simulation to achieve dynamic aesthetics satisfying environmental performance for energy efficiency and indoor comfort. This paper presents a design exploration framework for climate-adaptive facades with thermally responsive smart materials, limiting the scope of study to a pilot study of facades in Seoul, South Korea. The proposed smart material building skins are discussed for further simulation and validation to assess multiple criteria to verify their environmental performance and implementation for practical use. The paper is concluded by providing selected thermo-responsive smart material facade types and directions for future work.

This paper studies the Dai houses and villages in Xishangbanna, Southwest China. Dai is one of 55 ethnic minorities in China. By comparing the field study of Dai houses carried out in the 1990s and the field study for two villages in 2017, the research investigates two key aspects. Firstly, it considers the influence of new building materials and technologies and impacts brought in by rapid urbanization, together with changes in the traditional integrated relationship between houses, village environment, and surrounding environment. Three key impacts on rural development in the region were identified. Secondly, the project explores the development of the research methods for vernacular houses in China. The focuses of investigation, starting from anthropological studies in the 1950s, now include greater consideration of environmental context. Research found that architects and academic scholars can support the interface between policy, academic studies and practices on rural development for decision-making. Medium term planning is needed in order to provide link between current practice and long term sustainable aims.

Building regulations are currently under development across Europe in advance of the implementation of the nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB) standard at national member state level. However, when revising the national building regulations to improve energy efficiency, few examples exist of the monitored performance of such dwellings, making informed decision-making difficult. This paper reports on the monitored performance of nZEB compliant dwellings which were built to the Passive House (PH) Standard. It finds that the PH bedroom CO2 concentrations are significantly better than in houses built to the current building regulations which use natural ventilation.