Conference Agenda

Although research in the field of urban climatology has greatly expanded in the last two decades, the impact of urban climate knowledge on the urban planning and design practice remains very low. This is particularly the case in developing countries such as China, which faces a series of environmental problems. The paper looks at the ways urban climatic evaluation and application are incorporated into the master urban plan. It introduces the newly developed China National Guide—‘Technical specification for climatic feasibility demonstration in urban master plan (QX/T 242-2014))’, which aims to assist practitioners and policymakers to respect the natural environment and climate, and to adopt the concept of eco-protection. They can then carry out the overall urban planning climate feasibility evaluation from a climate perspective, so the city’s development will follow a rational planning program based on scientific evidence that will lead towards the goals of urban liveability and sustainable development. It also provides suggestions on data collection, methodology, planning implementation and technology report preparation. In this paper, the Tongzhou wind corridor plan is selected as a case to demonstrate the adoption of this Guide in real planning and design scenarios.

: This paper aims to explore the role that critical engagement with precedent might play in the delivery of Architectural sustainable design excellence. It is argued here that there are currently two divergent core paradigms in the field of architectural design: one based upon a conceptually underpinned process of Conjecture and Analysis, termed here Architectural Design Excellence; while the second, termed Sustainable Performance Excellence, seeks its delivery through a process termed by Bamford, Analysis and Synthesis, of constituent problem fragments. The central role of precedent in architectural design processes is acknowledged in both contexts, and as such it is argued that critical engagement from a sustainable performance perspective with case studies that demonstrate architectural design excellence may provide an effective route for achieving their synthesis. Online coverage of the 21 Stirling Prize winners, 1996 – 2016 (as a proxy for Architectural Design Excellence) were evaluated using a framework for holistic sustainability and the results presented in summary here. It was found that sustainable performance was largely ignored in the available critique, despite some performing well within the narrow measure of energy performance as evidenced through DEC’s, thus limiting precedents’’ potential role within the delivery of a future synthesised sustainable design excellence paradigm.

This paper tackles the challenge of lowering the energy consumption of office towers in Dubai. The idea of “Sky Gardens” is used as an alternative design concept to base on it. These spaces are defined as transitional zones between indoor and outdoor environments, which provide a smooth transition between otherwise contrasting climatic conditions. The research explores the multiple possibilities of the Sky Gardens; not least as an incentive for users to spend more time away from mechanically conditioned spaces while providing a better climatic interface for the conventional offices. The concept can be traced back to the vernacular courtyards of the region, which were typically equipped with systems that ameliorated the harsh outdoor conditions. The idea is translated and sophisticated so that the Sky Gardens can be adapted during mild, warm and hot periods to improve the building’s performance by coupling and decoupling it with the outdoor environment.

This paper refers to a project research of an office building in a cold climate, which objective is to achieve optimized energy standards by applying integrated design strategies. A theoretical model is proposed, and the formulation begins with a morphological analysis. Subsequently, thermal, light and ventilation criteria are integrated; analysing the energy demand throughout the design process. The model is compared with a reference case. As a result, the optimized model achieves a significant reduction in energy demand, and better thermal / visual performance. It concluded that the application of the integrated design, with the support of assisted simulation tools, allows to optimize the energy performance of a building in the design stage