Conference Agenda

Shared bicycles have been around for a while and growing steadily in China. Recently, concept and volume of this new form of shared transportation vehicles captured a widespread attention and usage. This study is focused in two areas known as former French concession in Shanghai and in Xintiandi. Using one of the popular bicycle sharing app “Mobike” location and number of available bicycles is captured during a period of one week, three times a week, and every eight hours. Furthermore, this data is correlated with the existent urban framework by analysing certain aspects such as proximity to building services and daily life of locals. Allowing a quantitative and comparative evaluation with other sites regarding predictors of urban development, cyclers safety and urban quality. Then a proximity factor is introduced measuring the distance to key services, such as supermarkets, restaurants or office buildings, that impact life in the area. Finally, it will be possible to determine the comparative quality of these areas and take conclusions regarding future area studies and comparisons.

This paper considers both the housing emergency and unused building stock as part of "People and Community" and shows how, by recovering unused buildings in metropolitan areas for residential use and through conscious management by the inhabitants, the energy-hungry building stock can be upgraded and mitigate the housing emergency. The Case Study reported here is the "Spin Time Labs" building in the heart of Rome, a former office building squatted by 180 homeless families (323 inhabitants) since 2013 that has become an urban regeneration laboratory and creator of economic value and social redemption.

Safe public spaces that are universally accessible for enjoyment have become important goals for cities around the world. Universal safety is a fundamental requirement for cities to become sustainable and inclusive. Such performance criteria are difficult to measure at the scale of the local neighbourhoods and streets, and this can have life-and-death consequences for vulnerable and marginalised demographics, such as women, children or urban newcomers who are unfamiliar with local dangers and risks. However, technological advances are creating a new landscape for data production, collection and analysis, capable not only to portray routine urban patterns in fine spatial and temporal scales, but also to empower citizens as part of this process. This study analyse the data collected in Bogota and Nairobi through SafetiPin app which was developed in response to the exclusive and unsafe character of neighbourhoods. This mobile app crowd-sources data to identify the factors that lead to lack of safety and insecurity in cities. The findings of this study suggest that lighting, openness, visibility, and public transport could significantly affect the prediction of whether people feel safe. This paper also discusses the extent of this impact.

In Word Health Organization’s Global Age-Friendly Cities Guide, green spaces have been identified as essential age-friendly features in urban environments. A pilot study had been conducted to study the interrelationship between key design aspects of green spaces, health conditions of elderly residents, and their perception and preference of the green spaces using questionnaire survey. It was also found that perceived safety in green areas is associated with the aesthetic quality and the physical health of elderly residents. The results also reveal individual differences among elderly residents in perception of green spaces and the associated health outcomes. Moreover, this study showed that plant colour and maintenance of green spaces are the key design and management aspects that linked to objective assessment on aesthetic quality. Findings of the study will inform the planning and design of age-friendly urban environments in high-density cities.

The residential market in the Mediterranean climate as well as in other parts of the world has a large number of buildings that were built with a long lasting structure but limited consideration for energy efficiency and thermal comfort. Retrofitting the existing envelope can help reach national energy reduction goals while improving the living conditions and reduce energy expenses for the tenants. This study focuses on low budget retrofitting of old residential buildings in a Mediterranean climate with two applicative case studies already finished. The two buildings are of similar size but in different local climate settings. In both projects a similar analysis methodology was performed, that included structural, thermal and energy use inquiry. The analysis concluded in intervention strategies for each building, and despite the similarity in the buildings, the variations in the intervention strategies were essential. This paper focuses on the methodology to analyse existing structures in order to identify preferred renovation tactics, based on the knowledge of the executed case studies. The study was done in collaboration with Israeli housing companies and is meant to serve as a pilot for larger renovation projects of existing residential building stock.

The applicability of passive cooling methods has been a recurring subject in architectural engineering science. The integration of these methods in architecture often requires feasibility studies and, in most cases, a deep knowledge of the climatic conditions is required to succeed in this task. The number of parameters to be evaluated will depend on the complexity of the cooling system, the physics involved and the context. This paper addresses the climatic applicability of convective and evaporative cooling systems in the context of United States (US) through the creation of a series of applicability maps deriving from processed climate data. This work is a revision of the climatic maps for downdraught cooling developed in Europe and in China with an extension to evaluate the opportunity for natural ventilation. More specifically, the studied cooling solutions are: Natural Convective Cooling (NCC), Passive Evaporative Cooling (PEC), and Active Downdraught Cooling (ADC). The maps obtained demonstrate the strong potential for the use of passive evaporative and convective cooling solutions in the US to overcome the current dependency on mechanical systems.

Climate and weather severe events together with political conflicts linked to climate change are the most driving force for mass population to leave their homes seeking safe heavens. Climate refugees are becoming and will be the next wicked challenges we will face. Refugee temporary settlements proved to have high environmental burdens given their short life time using industrial materials with high embodied carbon in the production. Since long, alternative natural based low impact materials do exist using a carbon neutral production and construction process. This paper is presenting the outcome of one-year project in designing and constructing an eco-cycle negative carbon and positive energy eco-cycle home. The idea is to achieve a self-sufficient and low impact temporary shelter design with the least carbon emissions during construction and after demolition. The design complies with premium passive house standards constructed in an experimental urban living lab for proof of concept. The house now under monitoring for evaluating its performance. The project is applied in Sweden but the methodology could be applied in different other climatic contexts.

The cost of living rurally, already higher than urban areas in terms of food, transport and energy, is exacerbated by energy inefficient and inflexible homes, which has had detrimental impacts on the viability and sustainable growth of rural communities. Following on from community land buy-outs in the late 1990’s, the communities on the Island of Eigg and the Knoydart peninsula in the remote north west of Scotland have facilitated innovative measures which have been central to lowering their CO2 emissions and maintaining the viability of their off-grid locations. Central to Eigg’s strategy has been the implementation of a world-first zero-emission grid combining LZCGTs, battery storage and smart controls, telecommunications networks and shared equity land policies to encourage self-build housing. Notwithstanding, there is a lack of appropriate community-led, affordable, adaptable, grid-integrated housing models which remains a significant barrier to encouraging new people to move into the community to ensure its long-term resilience. The following paper discusses parameters for the design of alternative hybrid zero-emission housing typologies that have the capacity to cater for varied tenures and lifestyles, including live-work and rentable space, providing lifetime homes and energy balancing scenarios through their in-built flexibility.

The building and construction sector in Europe is the largest source of energy, CO2 and material consumption as well as waste production. It mostly relies on a linear building construction process. Not only materials and building elements must be demolished and disposed at the end of the life cycle of a building, but also a considerable amount of valuable raw materials therefore is lost. Due to a worldwide increasing need for construction activities, the construction industry is more and more under pressure. Counteracting it needs a completely new approach - the model of the circular economy - and the design of circular buildings. But, which requirements a circular building has to fulfill? The paper is incorporating the circular economy approach into architecture and presents a first tool to support the design of circular buildings in early planning stages.

Since 2015, the New York-based design studio No Architecture (NOA) has researched the history of vernacular and pre-industrial built environments in order to better understand indigenous solutions for climate-resilient development. Spatial and ecological performance analysis of our findings initially led to a catalog of vernacular outdoor microclimate morphologies, which we then translated into a higher-density proposal for an Ecodistrict located in Portland, Oregon’s Mediterranean climate. The interdisciplinary includes examinations of several dimensions of the early stages of a design process, including: underlying theoretical and historical frameworks; simulations of solar isolation and wind flow; and the elaboration of a set of flexible principals which can be adapted throughout climates with dry summer conditions. This proposal for a new “Rough Void” typology anticipates an alternate, climate-resilient trajectory for urban development.

The paper aims to critically analyze the housing policy Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awaas Yojana (PMAY), a social welfare flagship program, created by the Indian Government, to provide housing for the rural poor in India. The case study of Baiga tribe (aboriginals) is taken to understand its vernacular architecture and the impact of housing scheme on the Baiga’s traditional settlement. A brief study of settlement pattern is done. The dwellings provided by housing scheme are analysed on various aspects like architectural, social, cultural and economic, to identity the gap, why Government policy, schemes, development programme, and implementation fails to address the basic needs of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs). Methodology includes literature review from various sources, site visit, photography, survey and interviews. Vernacular dwellings and the new dwellings provided by the scheme are documented and analysed. Result and findings addresses that the recommendations made in ‘the revised scheme of PVTGs’ 2015 by Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India under ‘Housing and Habitat’ is not taken in consideration by the implementing agencies. The paper concludes that Government must ensure the correct implementation of scheme at ground level. The scope of the paper is limited to Baiga tribe of Madhya Pradesh.

In complex processes of building design, any feature not directly related to the construction purpose may be deemed superfluous and including new steps relies therefore on usefulness and ease-of-adoption. In this paper, we aim to prove that LCA data undergoes the aforementioned consideration and that decreasing the entry barrier in the application maximizes penetration. This research and its companion tool leverage the moment when architectural decisions are most influential, empowering architects to impact the building’s sustainability throughout its full life cycle by visualizing carbon footprint projections in a very customizable and nimble way.

ABSTRACT: There is an increasingly urgent need to cut global CO2 emissions and thereby avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. In the EU construction sector, action has already begun to help minimise carbon emissions and reverse their current negative impact on the environment. These initiatives have so far been based on introducing the mandatory construction of “Nearly–Zero-Energy Buildings” (NZEBs) from 2018 onwards, in compliance with an EU Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings (2010/31/EU) [1]. The NZEB project not only constitutes a technical challenge but also a challenge for the design process. It must be accompanied by the introduction of new, specialised programmes at Schools of Architecture. This article points out how this quest for design strategies to produce NZEBs has been converted into pedagogical content in the Polytechnic University of Catalonia’s (UPC) MSc in “Architecture & Sustainability: Design Tools & Environmental Control Techniques”. As an example of the work done and the results obtained, we present a project designed for a residential building in Barcelona, Spain. This was developed by a team of students from the MSc course and presented as their final project.

The world’s cities are growing in size and number. At the same time, the global climate change rise global average temperatures as well as increase weather extreme events. Sao Paulo, the 5th urbanized region in the world, has currently more than 21 million inhabitants and recent studies alert for the increased frequency of extreme climate events in the city. Therefore, this work deals with the role of planning, urban and building design for climate change adaptation in the microscale. The aim is to quantify the impacts on urban microclimate, based on present and future climate scenarios, regarding: 1) urban density; 2) building envelope and other urban surfaces; 3) green infrastructure; and 4) thermal performance and comfort in buildings, during occasional heat waves or for the projected IPCC AR-5 scenarios of climate change. For this purpose, a research project was structured at the Architecture and Urbanism school [4] approaching the interdependencies between urban morphology and microclimate in São Paulo, aiming to discuss urban design alternatives to counterbalance urban warming effects in a subtropical changing climate. This paper briefly summarizes what we have learnt with remote sensing, measurements and numerical simulation in the metropolitan, local and building scales and present partial results.

Building energy performance optimization requires an integrated design approach to explore and evaluate alternative strategies for energy saving and to improve construction process management. Energy efficiency education into architecture and engineering curriculum should address economic, social and environmental issues arising from the technology as well, training professionals and technicians who wish to be able to develop core skills in those subject areas according to a multidisciplinary educational approach. This paper presents the experience of a Post-graduated Master Degree Program at University of Florence, Master ABITA, that includes studies on low energy architecture and energy efficiency measures, integration of renewable energies in buildings, Building Information Modelling and Energy Simulation Analysis tools.

This paper discusses with examples, a course that introduces net zero energy carbon and energy modeling in large lecture courses. Several strategies were implemented: integrating design in technical courses, reducing the number of variables to consider in a design problem, increasing understanding of the physics of energy and buildings and increasing expertise in the use of analogue and digital tools. The course is conducted in both lecture and seminar/lab formats and it involves theory, practical applications, calculations, hands-on experiments and a main project in which students integrate energy model in the design process of a zero net energy project. All 49 student projects for the 2016 and 2017 courses are collected in two books, “Going to Zero” and “Going to Zero 2017”.

The aim of the architectural design thesis is to study the potential benefit of implementing passive design in an adaptive reuse project. From studies, several types of adaptive reuse together with its building elements were identified. Next, the potential of each adaptive reuse type was explored to determine the relevance of implementing each type to a unique project. The potential approaches were applied to an unused naturally-ventilated railway depot in Seremban, Malaysia to find out further improvements that can be added. Finally, several suggestions were made to improve the passive design potential through these various types of adaptive reuse for the aforementioned heritage building.

Three low energy luminaire projects, in which architecture and design students participated, utilizing LEDs, local materials and/or 3D printing were evaluated in this study: A) temporary luminaire compositions featuring local material assemblies produced in graduate architecture student charrettes in Thailand, illuminated with LEDs, assembled and photographed as part of a Fulbright workshop; B) 3D printed prototypes of luminaires produced by interior design students exploring light and shadow patterns and exploring a new modeling technology and C) U.S. EPA-funded LED desk lamp project by undergraduate students; exhibited at the National Sustainability Expo. The three projects’ requirements were different. A and C had an emphasis on available material and sustainability, B had a technology emphasis and used biodegradable material. Researchers found students’ luminaire design projects exhibited a great deal of variation across the convenience sample (n= 5, 22 and 18 for A, B and C respectively). Team compositions and disciplines varied. The use of various attributes: 3D printing; sustainable, local, or “found” materials; technology; light sources; and universities’ facilities’ with workshop availability varied across the projects. For B, 73% of participants reported the use of 3-D printing improved their effectiveness as an Interior Designer. Each project presented a unique learning opportunity.

A lot has been written about sustainability and sustainable development in the recent times, but a clear meaning of the term still remains elusive. Socio-economic-cultural factors such as the prevalent world-view in a society greatly influence environmental behaviour of people. Materialistic consumer culture and the urge to consume resources without restraint to gratify personal desire have a negative correlation with pro-environmental behaviour. It is therefore, important to understand how socio-economic-cultural factors influence the need to consume resources. This study aims to assess the intensity of perception of needs in people in the context of their socio-economic-cultural conditions. Primary data was collected through a survey conducted in several cities, towns and villages in India across different socio-economic-cultural scenarios. The respondents were asked to rate the intensity of needs in various categories (adopted from Maslow’s need hierarchy) on a five-point scale ranging from very strong need to not essential. Scores for intensity of perceived need were calculated for each respondent for each need type. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was done to see if the different settlement types and economic classes showed statistically significant variance in the intensity of needs. Significant variance was observed between different settlement types and economic classes.

Pedestrian environment is the key to walking in the neighbourhood. Complex settings in Hong Kong creates both opportunities and challenges to walkability in urban areas. Urban planning and neighbourhood design are important elements to support walking as a means of active transportation. It therefore requires better understanding of the relationship between walking behaviour and the built environment in order to improve the walkability in Hong Kong. The present study examined the effect of built environment on walking behaviour at both neighbourhood and district levels. Initial findings showed that the number of walk trips is associated with road density, land use mix and the level of PM2.5. At district level, walking behaviour, in terms of walking time and percentage of long walking trips, is associated with road density and land use mix respectively. It suggests that neighbourhood characteristics are influential to walking behaviour and the design of neighbourhood environment can potentially promote active transportation. Further studies will focus on including more factors related to walking environment and behaviour. Studies with finer spatial scales will also be important for the design of the street environment which promotes walking and healthier lifestyle in high-density cities.

Healthy environments are essential to prevent disease while promoting health and well-being. Healthy people and communities substantially contribute to sustainability. The design of the built environment in an education context is of high priority, providing architecture students with a healthy and comfortable education environment could contribute to a better cognitive experience, less absenteeism, greater students and lecturers’ productivity and better social relationships. The methodology proposed here is called Nurturing Environments Assessment Method (NEAM), and focuses on the health and well-being of building users´. It is based on a POE methodology; however, the NEAM applied here includes: A Space Occupancy Survey, a Users’ Survey (mood and perception of the building) and physical measurements of the interior environment. 99 students and 19 staff members participated in the surveys. The NEAM proved to be a useful tool to assess the quality of a building. The case study building needs to be fully equipped with furniture for students to relax and work. Solutions must consider improving ventilation, acoustics and lighting levels inside lecture rooms. In addition, strategies to make this building safer during evacuation in case of fires or earthquakes are essential for the wellbeing of occupants.

In the winter of 2014-15 an estimated 43,900 excess winter deaths occurred, 85% of which were in older people. There is a clear link between cold homes and poor health, especially in older people, as sub-optimally heated homes increase the risk of health problems that are particularly prevalent in this demographic. By 2050 a quarter of the UK population will be aged 65 and over, with the greatest population increases being seen in the octogenarian and older categories. Investigating thermal comfort in the over 65 demographic is key to ensuring that older people are able to stay healthy and comfortable in their homes. To date, thermal comfort models are based on working age populations habiting office buildings throughout a working day. This paper seeks to validate how suitable current thermal comfort models are in predicting comfort levels of older people in their homes. In this study indoor temperature data from 30 homes occupied by people aged 65 and over, together with thermal comfort data was collected during the measurement period November 2016 to March 2017. This data enabled the theoretical outputs from Fanger’s model to be correlated with the measured temperatures to validate the model.

In this article, the WUDAPT methodology was applied to Metropolitan Regions (RM) in the state of São Paulo/Brazil. The objective was to identify the influence of the typologies of urban versus rural occupation for a region with predominantly agricultural characteristics. The state of São Paulo/Brazil has six Metropolitan Regions and the choice of these regions was due to their socioeconomic and technological importance and because there is a concentration of agroindustrial and urban areas. The scarcity of data on urban form/occupation and on the function of cities makes it difficult to understand the climatic conditions of occupied space. Analyses were carried out, based on mappings developed by supervised classification and by treatment of MODIS satellite images. These resulted in the LCZ - Local Climate Zone classification; the mapping of the annual average Land Surface Temperature and the Surface Heat Island, all for the year 2016. Significant differences in surface temperature were found in the RM of São Paulo and Ribeirão Preto, mainly due to the type of LCZ class, soil type, solar incidence and topographic differences. Thermal images can serve as indicators of anomalies present in the analyzed areas and, associated with the LCZ classification, can support the formulation of spatial planning guidelines.

Construction activities can lead to detrimental environmental effects and the industry is recognised as a high polluter. Adopting more sustainable construction practices should be the mission of all stakeholders. One way of decreasing negative environmental impacts is to enhance the lifecycle of building materials. The construction sector can considerably enhance its sustainability quotient by fostering more sustainable practices around the use of building materials. From another point of view, construction is responsible for a large amount of waste, since it utilizes energy and materials. The construction sector is by nature fragmented and diverse, so involves many different stakeholders with different abilities to influence outcomes. As there is much to be gained by a more effective and coordinated construction industry, this paper reports on an investigation into the roles different stakeholders can play in bringing about change. This paper addresses this complexity and tries to clarify roles and responsibilities of stakeholders.

This paper describes the study on method development (regression analysis model and genetic algorithm model) and shows the results of the preliminary tests. The proposed holistic building performance analysis allows analysing the transition of energy demand, and understanding the impact of energy efficiency improvement in the building sector driven by nZEB implementation. By applying Finnish statistic data as open data source, the feasibility and potential of analysis was studied. It is clarified that a room for improvement is remained, but both proposed methods have potentials to provide informative outputs for the future energy analysis.

The present context of climate change and concomitant water related design challenges necessitate architectural innovations to provide sustainable housing for rural low-income communities, particularly in developing countries that are vulnerable due to economic, political and socio-cultural factors. In the wake of the Tsunami in 2004, the Sri Lankan government faced the paradoxical situation of rebuilding communities devastated by the disaster and the potential to build environmentally resilient settlements. The Kirinda Tsunami Resettlement Project is one such example that served a minority community and attracted international awards for its innovative architectural designs. This paper analyses the Kirinda Project, as a part of a larger PhD research project which employs an archival and empirical research methodology to evaluate planning intentions and the reception of the housing projects in the context of economic liberalization in Sri Lanka. Thus, this paper considers the synergy between the existing cultural landscape and the new housing designs, with the aim to provide lessons for sustainable architectural design for smart and healthy housing within the 2-degree limit at the scale of the rural village.

The driver behind the need for sustainable development is to mitigate the impact that predicted climate change will have on our cities, land uses and infrastructural systems. This paper explores new spatial forms of sustainable housing in Scotland where the demand for new housing in accessible rural areas is predicted to increase due to pressure from nearby urban centres. Historically, rural building forms were largely influenced by immediately available materials, climate and specific use, resulting in regionally identifiable typologies. However, changes in the way we live, proximity to place of work, and the relationship between home, community and land-use have resulted in rural domestic buildings losing specific regional distinctions. The primary house type on offer through the volume house building market is homogenised materially, structurally and spatially, lacking any relationship to place. The aim of this research was to generate new spatial models of autarkic housing and alternative massing arrangements that responded to land-use, density, energy, landscape and Scottish policy frameworks. The main objective in the study was to generate alternative, semi-quantifiable models that integrated the above requirements within holistic conceptual frameworks for rural sustainable living and which could then be used as a primer for further research and development.

Urban air pollution is currently one of the top worst pollution problems in China. It can not only worsen indoor air quality but also substantially reduce daylight availabilities in buildings, both of which are directly linked to occupants’ health and well-being. This article presents results of a winter experiment focusing on testing human performances in a daylit office room with three various glazing systems in Beijing. The impact of external air pollution on occupants’ visual comfort, alertness and mood is the research focus. Some findings can be achieved as 1) Urban air pollution can significantly reduce the indoor daylighting availability; 2) Urban air pollution would significantly affect occupants’ performances. 3) The impact varies with the applications of different window glazing systems. A proper selected glazing system could mitigate the negative impact of urban air pollution on human performances.

Material considerations are essential while trying to achieve low energy and carbon constructions. According to our preliminary findings, decisions regarding materials in new buildings are mostly done by clients or by self-builders often without the aid of an architect or planner. Therefore, community studies are important to understand today’s building dynamics. In this exploratory study - carried out in USA and Mexico - we analysed the public’s preferences for building materials for the exterior of dwellings and the factors that have more influence over their decisions while choosing the materials. We also studied the update in the subjects’ preference after receiving certain information concerning the materials. We wanted to know if the environmental factors play an important role in today's public preference in the building sector and what type of information could greater affect their beliefs. Preliminary results for Mexico and after a follow up analysis for USA show that acknowledging unfamiliar information (e.g. carbon emissions or price) might have a greater influence on the public’s update of preference of materials. This could have implications for the construction market dynamics in the usage promotion of low carbon building materials.

Many offices have been renovated to improve building performance. However, the user’s perception after renovation has not been evaluated. This paper presents user satisfaction with indoor environmental quality in façade renovated offices in the Netherlands. The study explored the correlation between facade renovation strategies and indoor climate on the one hand and on the other hand user satisfaction and user preferences. Data were collected in four renovated offices in the Netherlands, which were adapted using different façade renovation strategies. The case study consisted of conducting online surveys and indoor climate monitoring for 2 weeks with loggers. Statistical results demonstrate that design factors such as desk location, workplace orientation, and layout have a strong correlation with user satisfaction of IEQ, unlike window types. The suggested essential design factors for user satisfaction can guide architects and designers to better understand users’ preferences and to reflect on office design.

The understanding of households’ socio-economic characteristics and their behaviour has been acknowledged as a key factor while assessing the energy demands. There is considerable research in the area of building simulation and energy modelling; However, the representation of occupants and their behaviour needs further work. For instance, every degree rise in internal temperature settings will increase the household energy consumption by 10 %. This research investigates the energy use behaviour of a specific demographic and ethnic group, the British Asian households. A large-scale housing survey is used to gather self-reported information about the British Asian households’ energy use behaviour, for instance, heating patterns, appliances use, ventilation behaviour, as well as other socio-economic characteristics. Data collected will be transformed into energy models, which includes Space heating behaviour models, electrical appliances and lighting use models, and Ventilation behaviour models. The outcome of this research demonstrates how social perception and economic aspirations limit the acceptability of sustainable design and construction strategies. This research involves active community participation and engagement; a major part of the dissemination will aim at communicating the research findings to the British Asian households, which will have a direct impact of energy reduction by informed behaviour choice.

The opening form of building façade has a strong influence on people’s perceptions of interior spatial properties. However, architectural designers usually pay attention to aesthetics aspect of building façade and neglect the influence of changing the opening form on the people’s perceptions of interior space. Furthermore, the isovist is a quantitative method that describes space from a visual observing perspective including 2D and 3D measures. But most isovist studies investigate the visual experience of interior space only in two dimensions. Besides, the opening can also influent the daylighting performance, and the daylighting performance can impact the interior perception as well. In response, this paper presents the results of a study involving 52 participants who assessed 29 perspective views of virtual interiors with different opening forms for feelings of spaciousness. Firstly, these results are compared with isovist measures, including 2D and3D, to examine which isovist measure is more effective. Secondly, these results are compared with daylighting measures to find out which openings can possess both spacious feeling and nice daylighting performance.

Radiant heating and cooling systems have the potential to save energy and are widely used in zero net energy buildings. Their positive and negative impacts on indoor environmental quality and, in particular, thermal comfort compared to all-air systems are still debated in the literature. This paper presents indoor environmental quality survey results from 3,892 respondents in 60 office buildings located in North America. 34 (2,247 respondents) of these buildings utilized all-air systems and 26 (1,645 respondents) utilized radiant systems as primary conditioning system. Our results indicate that radiant and all-air buildings have equal indoor environmental quality, including acoustic performance, with a tendency towards improved temperature satisfaction in radiant buildings.

‘Community Energy’ refers to people working together to reduce and manage energy use, and increase and support local energy generation. It can help promote the infrastructural, social and cultural changes we need to reduce the impact of climate change and increase energy security. The core part of community energy initiatives is people, and therefore engagement is essential. In this work, the authors appraised three innovative mechanisms used to engage residents in Project SCENe (Sustainable Community Energy Networks), an ongoing research and development community energy scheme in a real-world setting involving 31 homes in its first phase along the banks of Nottingham’s River Trent. New tools for improving crucial consumer and citizen engagement, participation, co-production and demand-side management were used and their efficacy analysed. These included a user engagement platform, an energy interaction model and in-home smart technology. The findings presented here epitomise the centrality of social-technological interdependencies and the importance of social and collective processes throughout these. It was concluded that civil society were essential actors in the services used and shaped through the passive and active processes that underpin what we do and why, and that utilising these in interrelated methods supports the development and outcomes of such projects.

This paper aimed at an approximation of daylight availability metrics and users 'perceptions in order to understand if the daylight metrics approach the users' visual experience on the sufficiency of natural light in classroom spaces in the city of Florianopolis / SC, Brazil. The study allowed the comparison of the results by simulations of Daylight Autonomy performed throughout the software DIVA Plug-in Rhinoceros 5.0, with visual perception drawings, conducted by 256 users of three classroom environments. This comparison indicated which simulated parameters correspond more closely to the evaluations of daylit area, partially daylit area and non daylit area in study spaces. There was a greater proximity between the DA500lux [50%]/ DA 250lux [50%] parameters in the first two rooms studied, and DA 300lux [50%] / DA 150lux [50%] in the third room analysed. The results evidenced the relation of aspects of visual perception not only with illuminance values, but also with the physical measurements of surface brightness, expressed through luminance. Since it is known that in addition to criteria of horizontal illuminance levels in the work plane, several factors influence the process of visual perception and characterization of the conditions of the light environment.

The purpose of this research was to identify the habitability conditions presented by house for low-income families in an area with extreme hot dry climate such as Mexicali. Field work was carried out, through surveys. Based on the opinion of the occupants of the dwelling, their perception of spatial, psychosocial and thermal conditions of their dwelling were obtained. The results show which the psychosocial aspects, such as perception of security, privacy and pride, are at adequate levels, however, the thermal habitability showed problems throughout the year.

Artisan brick fabrication in Mexican communities are known to have social backwardness, this generates human health and environmental issues due to high levels of pollution. This study shows an improvement proposal for the locality of San Diego Cuachayotla, leading brick producer in Mexico. It focuses and highlight the main problems of the chain production, through a participative diagnose methodology. As a result, an integral project was designed, in stages. A first one with the construction of a proposal including an improved productive space, a living area, a family orchard garden, fruit trees, and family farm area to supply and promote a scheme for self-sufficiency. The improvements of the productive chain were developed following the «Best Available Techniques» concept, and an ecologic oven MK2 was chosen due to its high energy efficiency, to its pollutants reduction and fuel savings at low cost and feasible technology. This project shows how utilizing inclusive diagnosis methodology following a selection of best options available can help to improve quality of life as well as a reduction on the environmental impact focused on specific community needs and demands.

The aim of this study is to clarify detailed typical daily patterns of occupants’ behaviour of window-opening and air-conditioning in hot-humid climates. Face-to-face interviews for 1,570 typical households were carried out in Malaysia and Indonesia. All samples were divided into several groups, based on the city climates and air-conditioner ownership, and subdivided through a principal component analysis and a hierarchical cluster analysis. The result shows the daily patterns of occupants’ behaviour in hot-humid cities is clearly different from those in relatively cool city. Windows tend to be opened during daytime even if air-conditioner is installed, while air-conditioners are mainly used during sleep time.