Young Ki Kim

• Ph.D, M.Sc, B.Eng
• Professor (Assistant) at United Arab Emirates University

Building construction in the UAE is a growing industry. While Abu Dhabi and Dubai have a majority of mid-rise and high-rise buildings, AL Ain has mostly low-rise and mid-rise buildings. Additionally, the construction industry in Al Ain has seen an increase in the recent years. The aim of this study is to design a wellness center with a parametric r...

Living Walls and greenery systems importance is increasing as a sustainable building design elements to enhance environmental building’s impact. Numerous amounts of studies have demonstrated that outdoor greening, such as trees and landscaped areas can reduce a building’s energy consumption indirectly, as well as studies that have been conducted on...

The climate change-built environment nexus is complex and intertwined. Recognizing the rising air temperatures and solar radiations owing to climate-induced global warming, it is critical to manage the increased building energy and cooling loads in the Middle East Gulf states' hot desert climates (Bwh). One of the top climate priorities is to promo...

The pandemic had a significant impact on the medical environment. With a surge of patients and limited facilities, managing the patients was challenging. This pandemic taught us how to redesign medical facilities in our cities for future events of such magnitude. In the academic environment, especially in the architectural engineering field, design...

This editorial aims to summarize the main findings of the Research Topic “Adaptive Design Solutions for Buildings and the Built Environment after the COVID-19 Pandemic”. The collected works have provided perspectives on how adaptive design solutions in the built environment can contribute to influence health, comfort, performance and wellbeing duri...

With the prevalent use of large glazings, particularly in office buildings, offices receive an abundance of light and are among the largest consumers of electricity. Moreover, in an extremely hot arid climate such as in the UAE, achieving comfortable daylighting levels without increasing solar heat gain is a challenge, in which the window or fenest...

As occupants spend almost 90% of their day indoors, especially in the workplaces, Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) plays a primary role in health and wellbeing, productivity, and building energy consumption. Adopting the IEQ and Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE), data has been gathered from nine multilevel open offices within a university building...

Abstract - Since climate change is now evident, it is not only crucial to achieve high levels of energy efficiency for new buildings but also to apply retrofit solutions on existing buildings in order to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change and to further enhance indoor environmental quality for the building’s occupants. This paper rev...

With the widespread use of curtain walls especially among office buildings, offices stand to be in an abundance of light and are among the largest consumers of electricity. According to previous research, more than 50% of the energy losses happen through the building envelope. The window-to-wall ratio (WWR), or the percentage of glazing in a buildi...

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has witnessed fast growth in urban development in the past four decades. A plan to build 7270 houses by 2021 has been initiated by the local authorities. Different local sustainability guidelines are being implemented, including the Public Realm Manual in Abu Dhabi. These local guidelines are tailored to consider the...

As a result of an increasing demand for energy-efficient buildings with a better experience of user comfort, the built environment sector needs to consider the prediction of building energy performance, which during the design phase, is achieved when a building is handed over and used. There is, however, significant evidence that shows that buildin...

This study investigates the impact of the double skin facades on the annual cooling energy consumption of buildings in a hot-humid climate. DesignBuilder and EnergyPlus software are utilized as simulation tools to study the airflow and the energy performance of different design scenarios of an office building with a double skin façade in the city o...

Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) refers to the overall environmental quality within a building, especially as it relates to the health and comfort of the building's occupants. It includes several factors such as lighting levels and indoor air quality (IAQ). As humans spend a significant amount of time indoors; particularly in the workplace for up t...

Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) refers to the overall environmental quality within a building, especially as it relates to the health and comfort of the building’s occupants. It includes several factors such as lighting levels and indoor air quality (IAQ). As humans spend a significant amount of time indoors; particularly at the workplace for up t...

Villas are a very common building typology in Abu Dhabi. Due to its preponderance in residential areas, studying how to effectively reduce energy demand for this type of building is critical for Abu Dhabi, and many similar cities in the region. This study aims to show the impact of proposed energy efficiency measures on a villa using a calibrated m...

As increasing demand for energy efficient buildings with a better experience of user comfort, the built environment industry is faced with the challenge to ensure that building performance prediction, especially energy performance, during the design stage is achieved when a building in-use stage. There are, however, significant evidence suggested t...

This study investigates the impact of the double skin facades (DSF) on the annual cooling energy consumption of buildings in hot-humid climate. DesignBuilder and EnergyPlus software are utilized as simulation tools to study the airflow and the energy performance of different design scenarios of an office building with double skin façade in Dubai, U...

Cool roof is the technology that delivers higher solar reflectance and higher thermal emittance than standard roofing products. In addition, It is one of the technologies that is developing in the resent years, and its fastest developing applications is in the built environment with various benefits, such as reducing the UHI effect and minimizing t...

Cool roof is the technique that delivers higher solar reflectance and higher thermal emittance than standard roofing products. Its fastest developing applications in the built environment comes with various benefits, such as reducing the urban heat island effect by decreasing surface temperatures, which reduces the flow of heat into the atmosphere,...

A non-repeating thermal bridge occurs at junctions when building components such as a metal lintel crossing from the buildings’ interior to exterior with a little or no intervening insulation, creating a ‘bridge’ for heat losses through the external wall. In the UK, when considering a domestic building with standards of the building regulation 2006...

University energy consumption is becoming increasingly important both financially and environmentally. Indeed, government grant allocation now directly relates to environmental performance and it is essential that university spending on energy is reduced, without reducing the useful output or services offered by a well-regarded educational establis...

In this paper, dynamic simulation software (in this case, DesignBuilder) has been used to model and to simulate a typical 1960s UK social housing in order to examine the impact of retrofit, occupant behaviour and user lifestyle on energy pattern. In terms of retrofitting study, various energy efficiency measurements have been considered such as imp...

Indisputably, increase in Earth population calls the world to a new challenge. The challenge is to prevent the waste of energy as a source of human activities. At the same time, dependency of industries and life on fossil fuels has caused lots of damage to the environment. These in turn, led all human sectors as: researchers, engineers, mangers to...