Conference Agenda

Users’ well being and satisfaction are a key priority in the current architectural design trends and represent a relevant issue in a human-centred perspective. Concerning this aim, the application of climate adaptive building shells (CABS) offers relevant opportunities for tackling these challenges. This paper reports the outcomes of a study run on CABS to optimise the indoor comfort while calibrating the configuration of a dynamic facade module. Through the physical measurements of the environment and the integration of these values in the parametric process for integrating daylight and thermal performance into the design phase, a performance-based workflow evaluation supported the design of a Passive Adaptive Façade.

The purpose of this work is to provide a replicable method that is the base of a facade system design. The system, made of simple horizontal louvres, has a controlled movement manoeuvred by an actuator that exploits the expansion of a thermo-active resin. The louvres can rotate and close passively with the increase of the external temperature. Results show the uniformity of distribution of daylight across the entire space and the substantial gain of indoor thermal comfort.

In order to quantify the seasonal differences in the comfort temperature and to develop a domestic adaptive model for highly insulated Japanese dwellings, thermal measurements and a thermal comfort survey were conducted for more than one year in the living room of 3 condominiums in Tokyo and Yokohama areas of Japan. We have collected 19,081 thermal comfort votes from 94 residents of 69 flats. The results suggest that the residents are highly satisfied with the thermal environment of their dwellings. People are highly adapted to the thermal condition of the dwellings, and that the comfort temperature has large seasonal variation. An adaptive model for housing was derived from the data to relate the indoor comfort temperature to the prevailing outdoor temperature. Due to the high insulation of the condominiums, the seasonal differences of comfort temperature and the regression coefficient of the adaptive model are smaller than those of detached houses. Adaptive building design and adaptive thermal comfort of people are important for the energy saving building design.

This paper describes the characteristics of Cognitive Temperature Scale (CTS) under the thermal adaptation in summer. Field measurement and survey in summer for about 640 elementary school students in Sapporo and Kumamoto in Japan from 2009 to 2015 were made. Students put a red sticker on their individual “Thermal Diary Card” when they felt strongly thermal discomfort. They also recorded their CTS to the cards without checking the thermometers. It was found that firstly the CTS are strongly connected to the outdoor temperature in Sapporo and Kumamoto. Secondly, the CTS in Sapporo were around 26 to 27°C when 50% of them felt thermal discomfort. On the other hand, the CTS in Kumamoto were over 30°C. This result suggests that there is significant difference in thermal adaptation to the hot and humid environment in Sapporo and Kumamoto.

This paper describes the results of radiant exergy analysis on the process of human adaptive thermal comfort in summer. A subjective experiment controlling not only indoor thermal environment but also their clothes and posture for removing discomfort was made in 2016 summer. We found that subject’s adaptive thermal comfort is related to their cognitive temperature and warm radiant exergy from the interior surface of buildings envelopes. To decrease warm radiant exergy by behavioural controls such as opening the window and the door, and controlling the venetian blind is to decrease their cognitive temperature of the subjects.

Building Energy Models, which consider all energetic aspects of a building’s performance, are a beneficial tool for use in a building’s design and operational stage to optimise the design or performance of a building, aid in decision making, and carry out code compliance. Model calibration is a term which refers to the improvement in the performance of a BEM simulation to better match the actual building in design or operation, which will in turn improve the results in using the BEMs in their various applications. Model calibration is particularly relevant in a building’s operational stage considering that, as well as the number of dynamic elements involved in a building’s performance on a day-to-day basis, buildings quite often perform differently to the initial design intent. Despite the benefits, model calibration is a time-consuming process which typically requires expert user knowledge. This paper details a methodology focused on improving and automating elements of the calibration process to address these current known limitations.

PV installations on flat roofs offer a wide range of design options, which are usually neglected in urban-scale assessments as these typically assume horizontal or other fixed arrangements. In this study, we analyse the influence of common design parameters (tilt and inter-row distance) in evaluating the potential of PV arrays installed on flat roofs, using three different performance indicators. By comparing optimised arrangements to horizontal ones, we show that the latter could be misleading, unless building- and indicator-specific correction coefficients are applied.

Energy performance of historic buildings is an urgent matter, but mass implementation of efficient measures faces several challenges (namely, conservation, durability, or comfort). This paper presents the results of a multidisciplinary study of wooden windows in alpine buildings. Different approaches are needed depending whether the original window is maintained or substituted. In the first case, the results of a desk-based study led to the proposal of two new strategies of intervention. In the latter, an interdisciplinary workshop allowed highlighting the deficiencies of current practice whereas simulation results supported the definition of new approaches to address them.

Building-integrated carbon capturing is a system that provides carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and regeneration within buildings using a moisture-swing air capture technology developed by Dr. Klaus Lackner at Arizona State University’s Centre for Negative Carbon Emissions. This paper serves as a continual ideation towards moving a concept from the research and development phase into prototype development to perform experimental evaluation of how such a project would perform in real-life scenarios. We intend to build on strengths and overcome past design weaknesses through cross-industry innovation to create a more robust mechanism that is capable of carbon capture and regeneration.

This paper aims to identify the potential of natural ventilation for cooling a representative two-bedroom residential apartment layout in India. India faces an unprecedented demand for residences and must reduce energy consumption associated with air-conditioning. Three significant climates and cities in India are investigated in this paper. The potential to extend the hours of the year for which thermal comfort is achievable using natural ventilation strategies is tested. This potential is identified by employing analytical methods to design and size ventilation capacity. Five natural ventilation design strategies are used over several scenarios varying window free area and ceiling fan speed. Indoor temperature setpoints are based on the India Model for Adaptive Comfort. Results are given as percentage of hours of the year for which natural ventilation is capable to remove calculated heat gains. Percentages of hours are divided into day-time and night-time. Findings show that the combination of large windows or balcony doors with additional ventilation openings and ceiling fan increases the total percentages of hours of the year for which natural ventilation is effective impacting on substantial energy consumption reduction with air-conditioning. Conversely, this potential varies with climate, and hence location.

Buildings consume 33% of total energy (24% domestic and 9% commercial) in India and this is growing at 8% per annum. Reliance on fossil fuel and increasing demand for energy has led to having an unregulated energy use in buildings in India. Despite multiple instances of green buildings existing throughout India wide-scale adoption of green building practices have not been observed. This leads to higher than predicted energy use. Building Performance Evaluation is essential to reduce this gap and help buildings perform better. Despite the improvements in building systems and services, energy efficient building design and implementation – there is a growing gap observed between the intended and actual performance of buildings leading to higher than expected energy use. The purpose of this study is to understand this performance gap for a university building. The study evaluates the actual performance of this building through on-site measurements and provides feedback for the building to perform better.

Town housings are facing good prospects and will play an important role in energy-saving and emission reduction in the future. As the main energy resource for heating, coal utilization in the severe cold region is worthy of attention. With data from the 2016 Northeast towns investigation, this paper estimated coal utilization in town housing by calculating expenditure. The investigation covered 4 aspects: basic household information, family living conditions, residential housing characteristics and energy utilization. Town residential coal utilization in Jilin Province is the most, while Liaoning Province is the least. Household appliances, cooking fuel, central heating, heating tools, housing area and monthly income are analysed as factors of residential coal utilization.

The term "Profile" is often used in different disciplines to identify fundamental properties of an object, while analyzing future steps to use them. In this research, the concept of Energetic Profile for Existing Office Buildings and its features are presented. The Energetic Profile consists of seven architectural parameters ranging from macro to micro, taking into consideration its surrounding environment, the building’s morphological characteristics up to the typical floor plan design. The Energetic Profile enables the identification of energy saving opportunities and enables distinction between energetic-architectural typologies of office buildings which are not commonly discussed in environmental conscious standards. For each of the parameters a methodology was developed to investigate its total energy impact (divided into cooling, heating and lighting) in a theoretical office building located in a hot and humid climate. Performed case studies demonstrate the effectiveness of the tool to identify potential action directions for energy savings, compare design alternatives, and examine the influence of various construction phases of the building. The case studies proved up to 50% in savings potential compared to current condition, when implementing the conclusions of the profile. Future contribution is expected as an auxiliary tool for designing also new office buildings.

Commercial and office buildings often have problems on the aspects of indoor thermal environment and energy performances. The actual performance of these types of buildings, most of the time, are different from the desired performance. A data collection was conducted in an office space of a university building in Singapore as part of the ongoing study, measuring the environmental performance of office buildings across Southeast Asian countries. The objective measurement on the thermal condition shows that most measurement points across office space is at the colder side of the comfort zone. This finding is supported by the survey results where only about 65% of occupants voted for “slightly cool”, “neutral” and “slightly warm” and about 22% of occupants showed “cold” related symptoms on their legs, hands and body at the end of working hours. The calculated neutral temperature range was generally from 24 degC to 26 degC, while the measured room temperature was mostly below 24 degC.

The first aim of this paper is to analyse the potential for application of hydrogen production and storage systems integrated with renewable energy sources, aimed to provide safe, efficient and stable energy solutions for building and transportation on isolated territories. The value of this concept will be checked on the examples of pilot and demonstration facilities developed for distant European islands. Several archipelagos belonging to different European countries were selected as case studies. The purpose of such choice is to investigate various climatic, geographic and legislative conditions determining the new opportunities that may bring benefits to cleaner and more sustainable environment. The second goal of this study is to check if/how European Union Framework Programmes contributed to the development of increased energy efficiency, independence and renewability in the isolated European territories.

CO2 emissions of buildings are progressively shifting from operation to other lifecycle stages. Despite the increasing importance of embodied carbon, it remains unregulated, without defined standards or industry benchmarks. This paper presents research findings from the analysis of five exemplary built precedents, comparing both operational and embodied CO2 emissions with benchmarks. Designed with a holistic approach, the whole-life carbon emissions from these buildings are shown to have been reduced by some 50%. Design guidelines resulting from study of these built precedents have been synthetized into a design application for central London, with estimated a 75% reduction in carbon emissions when compared to standard buildings.

This short paper provides a critical literature review of several domains in the field of daylighting design with respect to their lack of accountability to the chronobiological factors related to daylighting design. The review identifies deficiencies in the current metrics from the quantitative - instrumental, health-effective, to the qualitative – aesthetical to quantify the impacts of daylighting design on occupant’s health and well-being. To test the critical analysis, a pilot study was designed to provide a holistic view of how the integration of these domains can address the application and architectural decision making for window design parameters. It is an attempt to elaborate on the glass industry’s research and aims to look at the effects of different window design parameters on the transmission of the electromagnetic spectrum within a space’s interior. More specifically, it investigates the effects of distance from a window on the transmission of daylight through clear glazing and how the daylighting quantities and qualities transmitted affect occupant health and well-being, with a focus on circadian entrainment. This proof of concept study is seen as a first step to investigate long-debated hypotheses on the mechanisms of daylighting impacts on occupant’s health and well-being.

This study investigates the relationship between solar radiation received on vertical building façades and two sky exposure performance indicators, i.e. Sky View Factor (SVF) and Sky Exposure Factor (SEF). The study was conducted by using Ladybug for Grasshopper to perform solar radiation simulation on over 300 cases of archetypal urban forms with different morphological settings. Regression analysis was then applied to examine the relationship between X and Y. The findings suggest that though both SVF and SEF have a high goodness-of-fit with solar radiation on vertical building façades (R2 = 0.69 and 0.70 respectively), site coverage should be used as a categorising factor for improved assessment.

Data from an experimental investigation, carried out during the summertime (from the end of July to mid-September, 2016), have been statistically analysed, with the purpose of proposing a post-instalment-evaluation technique by assessing the effects that some architectural features have on the indoor environmental conditions in a prototype of Plus Energy House in Southern-east France. The proposed correlation analysis is tested first, to evaluate its reliability for distinguishing strong from weak correlations. Since the proposed analysis appears to be acceptable, it was used then for studying the relationship between outdoor and indoor environments. Results from the correlation analysis strongly suggest that the impact of direct solar radiation on the indoor environment is well attenuated by the double-glazed windows with blinds implemented in the house.

Observed global warming trends undermine the conventional practice of using historic weather files, such as Typical Meteorological Year (TMY), to predict building performance during the design process. In order to limit adverse impacts such as improperly sized mechanical equipment or thermal discomfort, it is important to consider how the building will perform in the future. Like all passive design strategies, natural ventilation, relies on local climate to be effective in improving building performance. This paper uses future weather files with whole building energy simulations to assess the sensitivity and feasibility of natural ventilation in providing thermal comfort in three locations, representing different climate types. The results show how building performance, as measured by thermal comfort metrics, changes over time. Natural ventilation can provide a buffer against warming climate, but only to a certain extent. Future weather files are useful for identifying where and when there is a risk that an entirely passive design is no longer feasible.

This paper investigates the potential of Local Climate Zones (LCZ) maps to identify vegetation loss in the São Paulo Metropolitan Region. LCZ maps from 2002 and 2017 were produced according to the World Urban and Database Portal Tool methodology for acquiring Level 0 data. A change detection analysis was performed to compare the two maps. The identification of vegetation loss through changes in LCZ types showed promising results as a free tool to monitor vegetation dynamics due to urban development, with great suitability for local government use.

This study demonstrates how the design of bimetallic facade screens can provide passive climate control for high thermal mass walls in hot climates with large diurnal temperature swings. Three tests were performed using measurements for air temperature, heat flux, and thermal imaging that show solar shading potential of a bimetallic screen in front of a generic wall surface. Results revealed significant thermal reduction to the wall surface and helped identify key environmental, material, geometric, and performance parameters that can influence design. Local temperature differences, bimetallic coefficients of expansion, length, thickness, screen depth and porosity had a considerable influence on performance parameters such as deflection, solar shading, and heat flux reduction.

The objective of this study is to investigate the urban wind power potential from the proper arrangement of high-rise buildings in a complex and dense urban environment. There is great prospective in the formulation of the building design at early stages to maximize wind power production in dense urban areas. We employed the 3D steady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to investigate the impact of the arrangement of high-rise buildings on the wind energy potential . Two arrays of high-rise buildings with height = 90 m and aspect ratio (height/width) of 4.5 is studied, which focuses on different distances between the side façades of the upstream buildings, ranging from 3 to 21 m. The findings of the study support the high-rise buildings design with respect to integrated urban wind energy harvesting and the concept of sustainable urban development.

As one part of a three years project, this study was the test of a research procedure that will be applied to older occupants in care homes in the future research. It aims to investigate the feasibility of using Transepidermal Water Loss (TEWL) to measure the effect of dry air on occupant’s skin condition and hygrothermal comfort in a real living environment. 9 young adults participated in the 4-week study. Domestic humidifiers were used in each room to alter room humidity under a sequence of interventions. Data was collected under the circumstance of no interferences to occupants’ daily life. The collected data includes room temperature, relative humidity (RH) and TEWL on front arm. Results show that the measured TEWL was not significantly correlated to room RH due to inappropriate research procedure. Room humidity was effectively altered to 40% RH through the domestic humidifier used.

This study aimed to quantify the embodied energy of economic and socialized housing units in Davao City, Philippines and listed down the construction materials that contributed significantly to the total embodied energy and at the same time correlated these materials to the embodied energy. Embodied energy coefficients of construction materials were sourced out from existing literatures since there were no available standards and studies conducted or published in the context of the Philippines. A bill of materials/quantities was prepared for each housing unit in order to compute the embodied energy. The research findings showed that an average of 9,477.74 MJ/m2 of embodied energy was computed among the housing units. The results also showed that building materials such as cement, reinforcing bars (steel), gravel, and sand, have significant positive correlation with the embodied energy alongside the house unit floor area. The result further showed that the embodied energy measured per square meter (MJ/m2) was higher compared to the existing and published studies conducted. Implications to housing delivery were also pointed out for policy-making which could be adopted by the housing authority.

This paper aims to reveal the detailed household energy consumption patterns in four major cities of Indonesia and Malaysia. A total of 1,437 households of landed houses and apartments were surveyed during 2010-2014. The detailed household appliances and gas consumption were investigated through face-to-face interviews and measurement. The results showed that overall, annual average energy consumption in landed houses (15-28 GJ) is about 1.3-2.3 times larger than those in apartments (12-14 GJ). The energy consumption for cooking accounts for the largest proportion in all the case studies, ranging from 29% to 66% of the total. The energy consumption for cooling include those for AC and fans and they account for 21% to 22% on average in Jakarta and Johor Bahru respectively. The profiles of CO2 emissions were similar with those of energy. The factors affecting household energy consumption for cooling energy are also discussed.

In the tropical environment, air conditioning has become a popular yet high-energy-consuming solution for interior cooling in urban households. With the rising trends in global warming, continued increase in air-conditioners usage has been serious environmental concerns over the past decades, calling for the need to rethink of more sustainable resolutions. While heat is alleged to be the main reason that creates discomfort, humidity also furtively plays a significant role. Sweaty and sticky feeling caused by humid environment deceive people to feel hotter than it truly is. As a matter of fact, rather than the heat itself, the discomfort triggered by humid environment could be the actual root for the high demand of air-conditioners in the tropic. This paper discussed the undesirable effects of humidity on people’s sensation and health which subsequently leads to the introduction to awareness of benefits of humidity control. The paper results in suggestions of how architectural design could take parts in controlling indoor moisture level by proposing a sustainable, energy-efficient, free-running design solutions to help people stay drier and cooler indoor. The research features materiality research and design experimentation regarding key humidity management strategies.

As the most widely applied residential building type in China, the form of residential areas composed of multi-storey residential building are strictly restricted by the sunlight standard in the design code. However, sunlight can still be inadequate in open spaces and overshadowed buildings in a compacted layout. Using a theoretical model, this paper identified the problem of sunlight and seeks to improve the sunlight performance in the type multi-storey residential building through formal modification of the building. The results showed the efficiency of the modification, which represented both in the open space and overshadowed building.

The application of studies of environmental quality of buildings and public spaces into practice and the way the planning of cities will face the climate changing challenge depends strongly on political will and governmental capacity to create appropriate management tools. While countries as Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada adopted continuous updated performance-based Building Codes, Sao Paulo city laws have lost over the last century, almost all the prescriptive construction requirements, which influence the environmental quality of buildings, such as the orientation of facades and the minimum sun hours on the openings. In the Code in effect, parameters as the minimum size of windows or the need to provide openings facing the exterior of buildings, or even the adequate room dimensions according to use were excluded. This paper aims to be critical and to make an alert to Sao Paulo’s planners about the risk of building such a complex city not regarding the quality of constructions.

School buildings in Manila are ill equipped to deal with the high demand for student places. This has manifested in overly dense classrooms, which in combination with standardised geometries has led to poor thermal and daylighting conditions. This research contextualises passive design strategies from literature and built precedents then applies these approaches to a theoretical classroom. The result is a design proposal that improves indoor comfort through simple interventions in geometry, ventilation, and materiality.

This paper presents the application of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) algorithms to develop forecast models to predict future energy consumption, outdoor weather and indoor microclimatic conditions in a historical art gallery. Each of these prediction models were implemented on two separate cases of sampling frequencies – daily and hourly sampling; providing a case of day-ahead and a case of hour-ahead predictions, respectively. The ANN models were trained with historical real-data obtained from the various sources, such as building sensors, building management information, and MetOffice. Excellent accuracy in the prediction results were observed through the statistical platform of coefficient of correlation (R) between the real-data and the ANN-predicted counterpart. It was observed that the prediction models for hour-ahead forecasting performed stronger compared to the same for day-ahead forecasting for all the cases of outdoor weather parameters, indoor microclimatic parameters, and NGS energy consumption parameters. The study further reinstates that the ANN-based forecast models can prove to be an ideal platform to investigate various optimisation strategies of the building operation in future, especially in the case of restrictive traditional building types where any retrofit solution needs a strong scientific backing before practical implementation.

As a response to the need to find urban solutions to the energy and food dependency in Singapore and to reduce the overall carbon footprint the concept of productive facades is proposed for residential buildings. Departing from the premise that buildings and the urban environment should not solely be the recipient but also the producer of energy, food and water; eight façade design arrangements have been optimised and built at the Tropical Technologies Lab at the National University of Singapore. All proposed facades, with and without balconies, integrates photovoltaic (PV) panels with farming systems as a way to partially supply energy and vegetables to the residents. In addition, the impact of the façade arrangement on indoor thermal and visual performance is also taken into account. The objective of the paper is to present the final design of the productive façade prototypes and the measurement strategy corresponding to the first three months from August till October 2018 in terms of PV electricity generation, vegetable growth and indoor thermal and visual conditions. A comparison with simulation results is expected to be made for four façade systems.

Most methods to analyse and understand the residential energy use features rely on invasive measurements, such as energy monitoring systems, which eventually affects the reliability of pattern classifications. This paper, thus, adopts a non-invasive method using unsupervised data mining algorithms to analyse hourly energy consumption data in order to learn the occupant’s lifestyle and energy consumption behavioral patterns. The study analyses hourly energy use of 298 households in Texas in 2015, using an online open source data set - Pecan Street Dataport. This study scientifically identified household’s energy use features and associated behavioural patterns through a multi scale observation of the clusters. As the contribution, this study takes the house age and size into account as these variables may significantly affect building energy use patterns. Second, it takes dissimilarity measures into account by using TSclust R package for clustering time series. And third, introduces a method of multiscale observation of clusters in order to interpret the lifestyle patterns. Finally, the results demonstrated how data mining techniques might be utilized to help investigating energy use data from the behavioural perspective.