Conference Agenda

This paper presents a workflow that informs urban design decisions using measured data clustering to calibrate Urban Building Energy Models (UBEMs). The method’s goal is to support urban design in terms of form, building systems configurations, as well as influencing user behaviour aspects in the built environment through a systemic analysis of measured data to develop reliable future-case design scenario energy models. Detailed data on appliance-level electricity use were employed via data clustering to calibrate a UBEM for the Mueller community in Austin, TX, USA. The data were collected by the Pecan Street Institute for a year in 2014 from consumers in Austin and other cities. Firstly, collected energy data was restructured and cleaned from corrupt and missing information. Secondly, in order to identify common energy use patterns, a model-based clustering algorithm for functional data was applied. Behavioural/usage profiles were determined through clustering and translated into usage schedules and behaviours. As a result, a UBEM built in the urban modelling interface (umi) was calibrated, with fully calibrated and semi calibrated buildings, within a maximum error margin of 14%. Finally, an illustration of calibrated-UBEM design case scenarios is presented, and implications on community energy potential effects are discussed.

It is becoming more and more important to create a comfortable thermal environment in cities. In order to increase consideration of the thermal environment in the planning and design process, this study proposed a method to combine rule-based rapid modelling with thermal environment simulation. This method can realize the flexible and visualized presentation of landscape and the thermal environment effect. Meanwhile economic cost of design elements was also taken into consideration. The proposed method can support the designers to evaluate the trade-offs among landscape, thermal environment and cost and then choose a better scheme. A historic district in China was taken as a case study object in this paper. Three optimization plans were made by changing building height, greening space and area of water-permeable pavements. Through visual analysis of 3D landscape models and thermal simulations, it was found that the green space and water-permeable pavements had an obvious effect on the improvement of the thermal environment, but control of building height had negative thermal improving effect. The proposed method also effectively improved public understanding of reconstruction design and thermal environment formation.

The records of the strategic documents for Lodz pay special attention to the need to undertake work in the historical parts of the city. One of the strategic objectives of the Municipal Revitalization Program for the city of Lodz 2026+ has become the "revival of the area of residence" through the transformation of residential objects with the environment related to them functionally, i.e. public and semi-public spaces.

One of the ways to improve the urban tissue standard is to ensure the correct microclimatic conditions prevailing in the areas of public spaces. In the paper, the microclimatic parameters and thermal comfort in the area of one of the oldest public spaces in Lodz - the Old Marketplace were estimated by the usage of the CFD program. Two types of input data have been applied, i. e. from direct field measurements and meteorological station database. It turned out that simulations based on data from direct field measurements were characterized by greater precision of obtained results. Existing thermal conditions were discomfortable, which results in the necessity of redesigning public space.

This study aims to clarify the trend of adapting clothing fitting to the thermal environment in offices located in Thailand by analyzing thermal sensation, thermal comfort, and thermal preference. Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) measuring devices were installed to investigate the thermal environment of two offices in Bangkok, Thailand. Questionnaires following ASHRAE 55 standard were distributed to occupants during their work hours. The results obtained showed that when plotted on a psychrometric chart, the thermal environment was mostly outside the 0.5 clo comfort zone (39% and 64%). The average clothing insulation in case studies was 0.65 clo, which is slightly higher than the normal standard value. The percentage of neutral thermal sensation votes decreased when the value of clothes gradually increased similar trend as to the percentage of neutral comfort votes. PMV calculation deviated from thermal sensation vote about 1 °C when considering thermal neutrality. Probit analysis shows that the neutral temperature of each clothing rate ranged from 24.2°C to 25.6°C. Occupants in less clothing could tolerate a wider range of temperatures than the occupants in more clothing. This study would be applicable to office buildings in the tropical region in terms of both the occupant’s behavioral aspects and temperature setpoint.