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Optimizing Perforated Building Envelopes to Improve Thermal Performance: A Parametric-Based Practical Framework
Abstract
Perforated patterns embedded in building envelopes have recently received much attention as a solution to improve indoor thermal performance. This study presents a practical framework based on a parametric approach to optimize perforated building envelope (PBE) design. The framework employs four stages: design intentions, input parameters, a three-step parametric approach, and output results. To this end, Grasshopper software for Rhino 7.0, ClimateStudio plug-in, and Galapagos components were used to assess thermal performance influenced by various pattern shapes, perforation ratios, and pattern matrices. Additionally, optimal design scenarios for the proposed south-oriented PBE of office space in a hot, arid climate are determined concerning thermal performance with energy consumption. The results indicate that pattern shape and perforation ratio are the variables that should guide the design of PBEs. However, the pattern matrix has little effect on improving thermal performance. The results then indicate that the optimized PBEs can contribute to an improvement in thermal performance of more than 28.2% and an enhancement in energy consumption of 27% compared to the base case without PBE.
One trend in building design is building envelopes with perforated patterns, which create a sculptural envelope using parametric and generative design tools to adapt to environmental conditions and user preferences. However, there are gaps in understanding the potential benefits of perforated building envelopes (PBEs) and their key design parameters used in contemporary projects. Therefore, this study aims to examine the classification of PBE design parameters and their commonly used parametric design tools that provide appropriate indoor environmental quality (IEQ) for buildings. The study is based on (1) a review of relevant studies, and (2) an analysis of case studies of contemporary projects. The results reveal relationships between key design variables of contemporary PBEs based on a conceptual framework developed in terms of (a) general building properties, (b) detailed envelope properties, and (c) environmental performance indicators. This study contributes to the field of architecture by providing a design strategy for creating PBEs based on a parametric approach and highlights the importance of considering IEQ in the early digital modelling process. By applying the five-stage strategy: creativity, configuration, generation, performance, and evaluation, it was found that PBEs can be a powerful tool to enhance energy efficiency by about 26.91% compared to glazed envelopes in Egypt, which may lead to improved IEQ. Future research could apply the proposed strategy to explore the impact of PBEs on various IEQ indicators.
Inspired by the hierarchical macro and microstructures widely found in nature, this study proposes a novel hierarchical honeycomb design methodology. The aim is to overcome the shortcoming of conventional honeycomb structures that have poor energy absorption properties due to damage after loading. Thereby, a new honeycomb structure with several superior mechanical properties is obtained. Firstly, triangular, square, and circular holes are used at the third microstructure level. Moreover, their filling types, filling principles, and dimensional design basis are thoroughly investigated. And a hierarchical honeycomb is generated by arranging them on the cell walls of a conventional honeycomb according to the conformal design guidelines. Finally, the performance of the designed hierarchical honeycomb metastructure is analyzed and compared by simulation and experiment. It is found that the hierarchical honeycomb metastructures exhibit significantly improved overall mechanical properties compared with the conventional honeycomb structures. The hierarchical honeycomb metastructures with different holes have different performance enhancement effects on the conventional honeycomb structure. Among them, the hierarchical honeycomb metastructures with circular holes have the best performance improvement compared to conventional honeycomb structures. The hierarchical square honeycomb with circular holes has 0.84% stiffness loss, 19.38% strength loss, and 199.67% energy absorption performance improvement. However, the hierarchical hexagon honeycomb with circular holes has 1.06% stiffness improvement, 5.55% strength loss, and 345.24% energy absorption performance improvement. Additionally, the reliability of the novel honeycomb metastructure is verified to be better than the conventional honeycomb structure with the spacecraft return capsule shell.
Parametric design influences on building envelope design are exponentially increasing in the current era due to the dominance of computational design on architectural outcomes. The composition of the building envelope’s patterns, shape, size, and distribution of the perforations can affect the efficiency of daylighting within the space; daylight quality, visual comfort, and daylight performance. Through the manipulation of the daylighting patterns, a balance between illuminance and glare control is created. This research study aims to analyze and evaluate the effect of different parametric patterns integration on daylighting in “Architecture Studio-based” tutoring through the distribution of perforation on façade openings, percentage of perforation, and perforation size in a hot-dry climate. The analysis is conducted through building performance simulation software (Climate Studio). The research concludes that the “Triangles Parametric Pattern” among all the tested patterns, achieves the highest performance in compliance with the recommended thresholds of daylight quality, visual comfort, and daylight performance metrics within the studio space compared to other parametric patterns and the base case model. The implications of such an experiment inform designers to categorize daylight performance while selecting patterns in window design as part of façade design.
Double skin facades are a popular research area but by no means a completed one. This review highlights the reasons why perhaps research topic popularity and flexibility does not always yield commercial results in industry. It is intended to be used as a tool for researchers to access a synopsis of double skin façade research as it currently stands in the 21st century and differentiates itself from other review articles by exploring the nexus of factors affecting ventilation and thermal performance and building integration of double skin façade systems. A sample of over 100 papers dated between 2000 and 2021 were selected through the identification, screening, and refinement stages of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) review method to organise the research into a systematic categorisation dependent on a range of parameters affecting double skin façade performance. This meta-analysis resulted in tabular summaries in each relevant section to provide an overview of the specific design factors affecting ventilation and thermal performance or building integration. Additionally, key trends in methodology, climate, and operation conditions were identified resulting in original graphical figures. The predominant closing remark of this review is that there is no singular definition, design or configuration of a double skin façade, there are multiple methodologies for assessing its performance as a heating, cooling, fresh air or energy generation technology and it is highly dependent on changing climate, geometry, building application and materials. As a result, there is presently no standardised way of assessing the viability of a double skin façade system from a technical, economic, and environmental perspective, and therefore could be the missing link between this popular research area, and greater real-world application in the global built environment.
Thermal performance is a major part of the building envelope and is getting more attention globally. Nowadays, parametric design methods are used in building envelope design, such as facade design, for optimization of building envelopes, which could affect thermal performance and energy consumption. Moreover, new technologies applied to building design have not only changed the appearance of cities but also increased occupant comfort. This paper illustrates a systematic review that explains some tools and techniques that have been used in recent years to improve thermal comfort by applying parametric design panels to a second skin façade for residents. It attempted to collect and synthesize the most relevant evidence and methodologies. In this paper, 30 articles have been analyzed. They are classified by methodologies, years, and climate zones. Results suggest that simulation is the most accurate in comparison with other methodologies.
The architecture, engineering, construction, and operation (AECO) industry is evolving rapidly. In particular, technological advancements and lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic are shaping the industry’s future. Various artificial intelligence (AI), building information modeling (BIM), and Internet of Things (IoT) techniques have contributed to the industry’s modernization by enabling more self-reliable, self-automated, self-learning, time-saving, and cost-effective processes throughout the various life cycle phases of a smart building or city. As a result, the concept of digital twins (DTs) has recently emerged as a potential solution to optimize the AECO sector to achieve the required cyber-physical integration, particularly following the pandemic. Based on a systematic review, the study develops and proposes theoretical models that examine the evolution of DTs in the context of BIM, cutting-edge technologies, platforms, and applications throughout the project’s life cycle phases. This study demonstrates DTs’ high potential as a comprehensive approach to planning, managing, predicting, and optimizing AECO projects that will achieve more Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, while DTs offer many new opportunities, they also pose technical, societal, and operational challenges that must be addressed.
The use of second building skins is becoming a trademark in modern architecture, opening for innovative solutions, such as three-dimensional (3D) systems. This paper explores the potential of these systems to provide adequate solar protection to glazed façades by means of an advanced optical characterization. Spectral transmittance and reflectance of fourteen samples, belonging to several technological families, are measured with a built-in spectrophotometer, suitable to accurately characterize complex semi-transparent systems. Solar and lighting properties are then calculated. The normal optical properties strongly depend on the openness factor, thus the geometry primarily affects the performance. A total of 11 samples exhibit normal solar transmittance in the 40–53% range; the value decreases to 20% for the plissé metal grid and increases to 70% on average for metal meshes. The angular transmittance depends on the system texture geometry and its self-shading capabilities. It was found that such systems underperform as static conventional shading systems; however, one of the metal meshes, the plissé grid and the plastic grid exhibit relevant angular selectivity, with transmittance decay at 60° in the 58–72% range compared to the normal incidence value. The results show that some of the selected 3D systems provide adequate solar protection. The developed dataset can be used for early-stage design analyses, as well as for energy performance model input and validation.
In performance-based architectural design optimization, the design of building massings and façades is commonly separated, which weakens the effectiveness in performance improvement. In response, this study proposes a hybrid massing-façade integrated design generation and optimization workflow to integrate the two elements in an evolutionary design process. Compared with the existing approaches, the proposed workflow emphasizes the diversity of building design generation, with which various combinations of building massing forms and façade patterns can be systematically explored. Two case studies and a corresponding comparison study are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed workflow. Results show that the optimization can produce designs coupling the potential of building massings and façades in performance improvement. In addition, the optimization can provide information that supports early-stage architectural design exploration. Such information also enables the architect to understand the performance implications associated with the synergy of building massing and façade design.
Recently, many studies have focused on studying indoor air quality, especially with the outbreak of COVID-19, which is one of the reasons for the increased need to improve indoor air quality. Many ideas and applications are available to incorporate nature into buildings to improve indoor air quality (IAQ) and thus secure a higher percentage of natural ventilation and pollution reduction. One of these ideas is to use “breathing
walls” (BWs), which are envelope components based on porous materials. They decrease energy consumed for heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning of buildings. The study discusses the effect of using the BW approach on thermal comfort in buildings. Moreover, the improvement in the IAQ when using two models - one using BWs (applying natural and industrial materials together on the BWs, which are composed of wooden concrete hollow
bricks (WCHBs)), and the other model built with solid traditional bricks (STB) - was studied through an experiment to compare air temperature, carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, indoor relative humidity, and thermal behavior. The experiments were conducted on the two models for five months in the summer of 2019, and the results of both models were compared. From the results, it may be concluded that the model with BWs exhibits
improved thermal behavior than the model with traditional bricks by recording on average three to five degrees lower than the outside temperature. Moreover, the relative humidity is lower in the WCHB model than in the STB model by ~41.66% in the same conditions; however, the CO2 concentration (ppm) in the WCHB model was lower than that in the STB model by ~28.5% in the same conditions.
Under the trend of building green and comfortable development, effective control of building energy consumption has become one of the problems that countries are actively facing to solve. People’s demand for residential buildings has changed from the past survival type to a comfortable and livable type. The high level of heating energy consumption is worthy of in-depth study. In order to reduce energy consumption, realize the mapping of energy-saving concepts in buildings, and understand the energy consumption of different building materials and the influence of external factors on human thermal comfort, this book has conducted research on building thermal comfort based on energy-saving concepts. First of all, this article introduces the concept and application mode of energy-saving concepts in buildings and the concept of thermal comfort and the SET index of standard effective temperature, including the two-node model and the algorithm involved in the Fanger heat balance equation. In the experimental part, a model based on the concept of energy saving was designed to predict and analyze the energy consumption and thermal comfort effects of the building. In the analysis part, a comprehensive analysis of the effects of temperature, humidity, wind speed, and gender on thermal comfort, methods to improve thermal comfort, cumulative load changes with the heat transfer coefficient of windows, and the effects of windows of different materials on energy consumption was performed. At the same temperature, the wind speed is different, and the degree of heat sensation is also different. When the wind speed is 0.18 m/s and the temperature is 28°C, the thermal sensation is 0.32, and the human sensation is close to neutral. When the wind speed increases to 0.72 m/s, the heat sensation drops to −0.45, and the human body feels neutral and cool. It can be seen that the increase in wind speed has a certain compensation effect on the thermal sensation of the human body. When the wind speed does not change, increase the air temperature. For example, when the wind speed is 0.72 m/s, the temperature is 28°C, and the thermal sensation is −0.45, and when the temperature is increased to 29°C, the thermal sensation is 0.08, which shows that the temperature is improving the thermal sensation of the human body which has a certain offsetting effect. By studying the thermal comfort of buildings based on energy-saving concepts, it is possible to obtain the effect of external factors on thermal comfort, thereby optimizing building materials and using building materials with lower heat transfer coefficients to reduce heating energy consumption.
1. Introduction
Building based on the energy-saving concept is a brand-new architectural design concept. On the basis of providing comfortable activity space, it provides more healthy living quality and efficient working environment for building users. Its development goal is to maximize the building, optimize efficiency, while protecting the surrounding environment and increasing the value of resource utilization, minimize the negative impact of the building on the surrounding environment, effectively reduce operating costs, and achieve the highest cost performance [1]. The concept of green building should be embodied in the entire life cycle of a building, from material transportation, processing, and production to new construction, operation and maintenance, and final demolition. In addition to introducing many advanced energy-saving and environmentally-friendly technologies, it is more important for energy-saving buildings to closely integrate natural sciences and the human environment, showing a people-oriented development concept and allowing people, environment, and buildings to develop harmoniously. Therefore, energy-efficient buildings have undoubtedly become one of the most influential development trends in the world today.
The evaluation of comfort is inseparable from architecture. Architectural comfort includes two specific concepts, namely, the comfort of the building and the comfort of the physical environment. The comfort of the building mainly focuses on its use function, including good living experience and convenience of living facilities, including the barrier-free design of the building. In comparison, the comfort of the physical environment largely depends on the individual’s state, and it will change with different feelings. With the promotion of intelligent buildings, the endless emergence of intelligent equipment and integrated systems not only provides great convenience for our lives but also improves the comfort of the living environment to a large extent [2].
Based on the above background of energy-saving concept buildings, many scholars at home and abroad have conducted related research. Meyer W believes that energy-efficient building renovation aims to save energy and, thereby, reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The increase in energy efficiency of buildings usually means a reduction in air exchange, coupled with other indoor air quality issues, which may lead to an increase in indoor radon concentration (Rn-222). To investigate the severity of this problem, the author measured the radon concentration in energy-efficient renovation and low-energy houses (passive houses). In a period of 1 year, the orbital etching detector was exposed to every type of building. The author draws reference samples of nonrefurbished nonpassive buildings from the national radon database for comparison, selects buildings with the same radon-related characteristics, and builds them on a geological subsoil equivalent to the geological subsoil of the survey. The compilation method of the reference sample adopted is that the measured values of the refurbished house and the bottom room of the passive house are assigned a measured value from the database. Statistical analysis shows that compared with unrenovated houses, houses renovated to improve energy efficiency have a wider range of indoor radon concentration. In buildings renovated to improve energy efficiency, the average and median radon concentrations have almost doubled. On the contrary, there is no significant difference in the distribution of passive houses and houses that have not undergone energy-efficient renovations. The author’s research on energy conservation has a certain significance for improving the energy efficiency of buildings, but the author has no control variables, and a blank control group should be set up for comparative analysis [3]. Middel A pointed out that, in hot desert cities, shading plays an important role in designing outdoor spaces suitable for pedestrians. The study investigated the impact of photovoltaic canopy shading and tree shade on thermal comfort through meteorological observations and field surveys on the pedestrian streets of Arizona State University Tempe Campus. During the course of the year, on selected sunny and calm days representing each season, the researcher conducted a meteorological section every hour from 7 : 00 in the morning to 6 : 00 in the afternoon and investigated the heat of 1284 people. On the 9-point semantic difference system, the shadow reduces the thermal sensation vote by approximately 1 point, thereby increasing thermal comfort in all seasons except winter. The type of shading (tree or sun canopy) has no significant effect on perceived comfort, indicating that artificial and natural shading are equally effective in hot and dry climates. Earth’s temperature is the reason for the 51% difference in thermal sensation voting, and it is the only statistically significant meteorological predictor. Important nonmeteorological factors include adaptation, thermal comfort voting, thermal preference, gender, season, and time of day. The return of thermal sensation to the physiologically equivalent temperature produces a neutral temperature of 28.6°C, the acceptable comfort range is 19.1°C–38.1°C, and the preferred temperature is 20.8°C. Respondents believe that being exposed to temperatures above neutral and being in the air conditioner will make them feel more comfortable, indicating that they are lagging in response to outdoor conditions. The author’s research emphasizes the importance of active solar energy access management to reduce thermal stress in hot urban areas. The study conducted a research on thermal comfort and used PMV voting indicators to illustrate. The survey samples are referenced, but they did not make reasonable suggestions on how to improve thermal comfort [4]. The scope of D Kioupis’ research is to propose an effective method for the experimental design and development of geopolymer products that can meet a wide range of end-user requirements. The method involves the application of a multifactor experimental design model through Taguchi’s method, which allows the combined effect of selected parameters in the response of the experimental system to be studied by conducting a minimum number of experiments, thus significantly reducing the time and cost of the entire process. The results showed that the use of various raw materials and additives, as well as controlled changes in synthesis parameters and manufacturing conditions, led to the production of geopolymers with a wide range of final properties. This method is used to develop geopolymers with compressive strength, density, and thermal conductivity in the range of 2–55 MPa, 0.6–2.0 g/cm³, and 0.09–0.40 W/mK, respectively. The author studied the relevant characteristics of the abovementioned building materials, but did not analyze the application prospects of these materials, such as the compressive strength and density of these materials, which make them applicable to buildings [5].
This paper studies the thermal comfort of buildings based on the concept of energy saving. First, this article introduces the concept and application mode of energy-saving concepts in buildings and the concept of thermal comfort and the SET index of standard effective temperature, including the two-node model and the algorithm involved in the Fanger heat balance equation. In the experimental part, a model based on the concept of energy saving was designed to predict and analyze the energy consumption and thermal comfort effects of the building. In the analysis part, it comprehensively analyzes the effects of temperature, humidity, wind speed, and gender on thermal comfort, methods to improve thermal comfort, cumulative load changes with the heat transfer coefficient of windows, and the impact of windows of different materials on energy consumption. The innovation of this article is to integrate energy-saving concepts into modern buildings to increase people’s awareness of green and environmental protection, select multiple external indicators for thermal comfort research, select materials with the best energy efficiency, and conduct an in-depth analysis of the thermal comfort of the human body in the building from multiple angles.
2. Building Thermal Comfort Methods Based on Energy-Saving Concepts
2.1. Energy-Saving Concept
The main content of the energy-saving concept is to reduce energy consumption and improve energy efficiency, which is mainly reflected in green buildings in terms of buildings. Green building, as its name implies, is to build an economical, comfortable, energy-saving, efficient, reliable, safe, and healthy living environment at the level of low environmental load by reducing energy consumption, maximizing the use of existing resources, and realizing people and the environment. The purpose of the building is to be mutually beneficial for symbiosis, sustainable development, and harmonious coexistence. With the continuous progress of economy and society, the sustained and rapid development of the national economy, and the improvement of the current social living standards, the society’s demand for living environment and management standards continues to rise, and there are new and higher demands for the functions of buildings. Nowadays, a variety of electrical equipment are installed in green buildings. The wide application of electrical automation technology in green buildings has increased the economy, reliability, and living comfort of buildings and improved the ability of building equipment operation and management [6, 7].
Green buildings can indeed reduce energy consumption by about 40% or more, but the initial investment is too much. From the inside of the building, it is necessary to consider heating, ventilation, water supply and drainage, lighting, etc.; from the outside of the building, it is to consider the natural resources that can replace these as much as possible [8]. And, we must comprehensively consider their mutual cooperation. This makes the process of building construction complicated. Another concept of green building is that the consumables of the building itself must also meet the requirements of environmental protection. At present, most building materials cannot be recycled and cannot be reused when buildings are demolished. This wastes resources and even causes pollution. In addition to being recyclable, environmentally-friendly alternative materials can also increase the lifespan of buildings.
The schematic diagram of energy-saving building HVAC is shown in Figure 1. It can be seen that the HVAC of energy-saving buildings involves multiple aspects of heat transfer and is based on resource conservation, reuse, recycling, and development and utilization of renewable resources. Therefore, the choice of building envelope structure materials in practice also requires the above four characteristics. Materials such as building walls should be environmentally friendly and save energy [9, 10]. Energy-saving buildings need to use green building materials, and the heat resistance of these materials can enable buildings to meet the requirements of minimizing energy consumption. For example, the outer wall of the building with the largest heat dissipation. At present, 60% of the outer wall materials in the construction market have used a large number of green building materials, and the energy-saving effect is very obvious. In addition to heat preservation, it can meet energy-saving requirements, and the weight is also small.
In urbanization, prefab buildings for office use are extensively utilized on construction sites owing to their convenience and flexibility. To study the applicability of standard effective temperature (SET*) and predicted mean vote (PMV) models in prefab construction site offices (PCSO), combined thermal parameter measurements and questionnaire surveys were conducted on selected construction sites in Guangzhou during the summer, autumn, and winter seasons. A total of 1505 valid questionnaires were collected. Based on the foundation of the adaptability theory, the data obtained through field studies were used to expand the applicability and reliability of the original PMV model and SET* model. This study found that the SET* and PMV models obtained in the current study cannot accurately evaluate the thermal comfort of people in the prefab building. In the cool condition, the original scale was lower than MTSV, and the conclusion is opposite under warm conditions. In addition, through calculation, it can be found that the natural SET* values were higher than the preferred SET* in three different seasons. The difference in preferred SET* was near 1 °C. The numerical values of the two types of models have been revised so that they can more accurately predict and evaluate the thermal comfort of a prefab building, thereby broadening the application scope of the PMV and SET* models. The modified models can thus be used to predict thermal comfort in prefab construction site offices.
This study adopts an empirical research method to investigate a number of design parameters for achieving a balance of daylight availability and visual comfort in office buildings using a double skin façade (DSF). This includes its perforation ratio, depth and the gap width from the outer wall. The study refers to the guidelines and performance metrics of the latest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design system; spatial daylight autonomy (sDA300/50%) and Annual Sunlight Exposure (ASE1000,250) to investigate the daylighting performance of an existing case study building in Egypt. Accordingly, 36 combinatorial simulations have been developed and statistical correlations have been carried out to scrutinize the interrelations between the defined parameters and their effect on the sDA and ASE values. The result indicated that acting on the perforation percentage and skin depths of a DSF provides the greatest influence on buildings’ daylight performance.
This study investigates the effect of a perforated sheet combined with a double‐skin facade (DSPF) by varying the important building parameters, such as perforation percentage, facade orientation, and the thickness of the double‐skin facade (DSF). This study determines the energy‐saving, natural ventilation, and daylight performance of an office building in Tokyo, Japan by conducting simulations. This study discovers that the DSPF thickness does not influence the performances much and the DSPF thickness of 0.5 m is recommended. For daylighting, the system with the 40% perforation percentage on the south and 10% perforation percentage on the west is the best case of daylight access without disturbing glare in the particular view of this study. To balance natural ventilation and daylight when installing perforated screens, this research demonstrated the net heat removal in spring when the perforated percentage of 50% on the south and 30% on the west is recommended. In autumn, the net heat removal when the perforated percentage of 10% on the south and 30% on the west is recommended. This research demonstrated that the total net heat removal when the perforated percentage of 10% on the south and 30% on the west are recommended for removing heat throughout a year. This study investigates the effect of a perforated sheet combined with a double‐skin facade by varying the important building parameters, such as perforation percentage, facade orientation, and the thickness of the double‐skin facade.
This paper reviewed related research works and developments on the traditional architectural element “mashrabiya” focusing on its history, design and structure, typology, and functions in hot climates. Moreover, the paper assessed the effect of the traditional mashrabiya on the indoor thermal environment and thermal comfort in a selected case study building. For this purpose, two similar rooms were investigated in a selected historic building with abundant mashrabiyas located in the Makkah Region, specifically in Old Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The field tests were conducted during a typical hot summer month with two different configurations. The study demonstrated that opening the mashrabiya allowed more airflow into the room during the day and reduced the indoor temperature by up to 2.4 °C as compared to the closed mashrabiya. Besides, the building envelope played an important role in preventing the high fluctuation of the indoor air temperature, where the fluctuation of the rooms air temperature ranged between 2.1 °C and 4.2 °C compared to the outdoor temperature which recorded a fluctuation between 9.4 °C and 16 °C. The data presented here can be used for the future development of the mashrabiya concept and the potential incorporation with passive cooling methods to improve its design according to the requirements of modern buildings in hot climates. Moreover, further studies and tests on mashrabiyas under different climatic conditions are required. Also, the different strategies or materials can be incorporated with mashrabiyas in order to improve its thermal performance.
Building façade plays a significant role in architecture; it is not only a mean to express the design concepts but it is the main moderator between exterior environment and internal spaces. Ecological facades are defined as the ability to response and adapt to the changes of the environmental conditions. The geometry of the proposed screen is not a focal point of this paper, as the aim is to find a method for designing and evaluating non-conventional solar screens that improve indoor daylight quality , while the specified shading screen is installed in front of a transparent full floor to ceiling glass facade. It is assumed that by using the shading screen, the required lighting levels are being maintained, while the heat gain is being reduced. In addition, the designed patterns play a role as an architectural feature of the building. Ultimately, the presented shading screens are based on geometric ornamental patterns and arranged according to the lighting requirements . Results are indicating a multi-disciplinary approach in the design of the shading screens, which can be employed in creating similar prototypes with different climatic and loading requirements.
Operating rooms (ORs) are the most critical and expensive sector of healthcare facilities. The air conditioning system is designed to provide a well-controlled indoor air quality (IAQ). This design guarantees a perfect infection control and a good thermal comfort of patient and operating staff.
This paper aims to analyse and evaluate indoor thermal comfort at different cases to assign the proper inlet air temperature to the OR. The predicted mean vote (PMV) and the predicted percentage dissatisfied (PPD) models in accordance with ISO 7730 were used for this study.
Field measurements were first carried out in an OR at Kafr El-Sheikh educational hospital to get the thermal environment parameters. These parameters are required to determine the thermal comfort indices namely (PMV & PPD). Four different cases of supplied air temperature 17.5, 18.5, 19.5 and 20.5oC were studied and compared through 105 measuring points distributed in the operating room. The PMV and PPD indices were computed at each case for three groups of medical staff: surgeons (metabolic rate equal to 120 W/m2), nurses and surgeon's assistants (100 W/m2), anaesthetists (70 W/m2).
The results revealed that inlet air temperature has a minor effect on the air velocities and airflow patterns inside the OR at the same air change rate. For the current ventilation system, it is difficult to create a very comfortable work conditions for all operating staff at the same time due to their different thermal requirements. It was concluded that a supplied air temperature of 18.5oC provides almost comfortable conditions for all surgical staff.
The paper presents a simplified conceptual model for energy demand calculations based on building envelope characteristics, thermal mass and local climate. It is based on a network model and lumped analysis of the dynamic process. Characteristic parameters for the buildings are suggested; Driving temperature (DT), Driving temperature difference, (DTD), External Load Temperature (ELT), and Thermal Load Resistance (TLR). The Building Envelope Performance (BEP⁰), based on a controlled constant indoor temperature is introduced. Solution techniques using stable explicit forward differences based on analytical solutions are derived. The conceptual model has been used for mapping the Driving temperature difference and introduced two performance factors α and β. The first factor represents the effect of thermal comfort interval and thermal mass on the energy demand. The latter represents the ratio between cooling and heating energy demand. These three parameters and factors have been visualized on U.S. maps and enable a possibility to communicate the demand of energy, and cooling and the coupling to building characteristics, in a concise way.
This research presents a multi-objective optimization (MOO) framework to support the climate-adaptive building envelope (CABE) design decisionmaking process using a parametric behavior map (PBM). Unlike static shading, CABE systems include dynamic operations that significantly affect their performance; thus, well-informed strategies for scheduling dynamic operations should be integrated to analyze CABE performance. In this study, two conflicting objectives were pursued: minimizing cooling load and maximizing daylighting performance during the summer season in a hot and humid climate (Houston, Texas). Variables in the CABE performance optimization process were defined as dynamic operation schedules having either parametric linear or non-linear relationships between the degree of openness of the CABE model and certain weather stimuli (i.e., solar radiation). Two CABE models were tested with the PBM by integrating a parametric non-linear function that efficiently conducted the optimization process in a large search space. The outcomes of this optimization study included Pareto-front solutions such as optimal CABE performance and their dynamic operation scenarios. These optimal operation scenarios were determined based on the CABE design options available and user's desired objectives; in some cases, static scenarios were found to be superior. Ultimately, combining PBM with a MOO framework will contribute to the field of performance-based CABE design by supporting architects and engineers and facilitating better decisions through well-informed dynamic operation scenarios.
Thermal performance of building envelope is acquired a great deal of global interest. Recently, algorithms are used in architecture for generating inspired shapes from nature which could effect on thermal performance. The research investigates an architectural design Methodology based on a “Modeling-Simulation-Optimization” framework to control the thermal performance of the building envelope. The design of a parametric building envelope is optimized by biomimetic algorithms such as genetic algorithms to minimize the thermal performance. It explores the possibilities of Enhancing the thermal performance of the building envelope by reducing the total thermal loads of a proposed unit in an office building. Results demonstrate that the total thermal loads are decreased from 366.36 KWh to 319.98 KWh which is about 12.65% less than the total thermal loads of the default state before the optimization process. Finally, possible configurations of the building envelope are presented to enhance thermal performance in real architectural design.
This paper suggests a parametric design workflow of an institution building in New Orleans, Louisiana based on parametric, climate-based analysis. This workflow is aimed to support the early design process with passive strategies to enhance occupant thermal comfort and daylight conditions of the building as well as its energy-efficiency. By analyzing the hot and humid climate of New Orleans and the needs of multiple spatial programs, including open spaces, workplaces, and residential units, parametric models were generated to simulate the annual thermal comfort and daylight conditions, which provides grounds for comparison among parametric models. In response to the climate analysis and bioclimatic strategies, three design steps were implemented: self-shading, façade components, and multi-functional screens.
New design tools have enabled architects to explore complex geometries for building envelopes. Perforated Screens (PS) have gained popularity but their design is still intuitive, often focused on aesthetic and morphological criteria. Yet, there is a lack of guidelines or quantitative standards for designing optimal PS, in terms of their daylight provision, views outside, solar shading or energy performance. Since PS can greatly influence the interior conditions, it is essential to understand the effect of screen parameters, such as thickness, perforation percentage, separation distance, and others that are often manipulated by designers. This paper analyses the daylighting and shading performance of thick PS in office buildings. Five design parameters were simultaneously tested in terms of the annual daylight and solar irradiance contribution. Simulations were performed with DIVA-for-Grasshopper and the following metrics were accounted: useful daylight illuminance, actual daylight availability, and shading coefficients. Three orthogonal arrays allowed the selection of 64 PS configurations as representatives. The overall average of every metric was used as an approach to select all factors having a mean significantly different. The mean values were then established as ‘Preferable’ targets. Finally, design guidelines to plan thick PS used in front of South, East, and West glazed façades, in a Mediterranean climate, were proposed. The results highlighted the importance of selecting appropriate values for every design parameter to enhance the integrated performance of thick PS.
Architectural flexibility, a critical aspect of building design, can be considered as one of the most important principles of contemporary architectural practices. The conventional practices fail to account for the inherent need for adaptability in response to evolving technical requirements and environmental influences. Consequently, modifications or renovations throughout the building's lifespan incur substantial costs and disrupt its utilization. This research explores the effects of sudden changes on office building functionality, including transitions, technological advancements, building abandonment, or pandemic outbreaks. It explores the potential of applied kinetic interiors to enhance functional flexibility in these cases. Three techniques were employed to evaluate internal functional flexibility, and the relevant terminology was adapted to incorporate the application of kinetic technology. The proposed evaluation approach is applied to eight case studies showcasing various aspects of kinetic technology in interior design. The study's findings elucidate the correlation between different flexible strategies and the resulting spatial characteristics, guiding designers in evaluating the features of each system and facilitating comparison between them. Finally, the main aims of the study are to propose a five-step design process as a guideline for creating flexible workspaces, involving the evaluation of alternatives to achieve the desired flexibility indicators, in addition to propose a methodology that outlines three main guidelines, categorized into functional, technical, and social dimensions.
As the world grapples with the consequences of climate change, sustainable building practices have emerged as a critical component of efforts to lessen buildings’ environmental impact. One aspect of sustainable building design that has gained significant attention is the use of perforated building envelopes. Perforated building envelopes aim to promote natural ventilation, daylighting, and energy efficiency while still maintaining the building’s structural integrity. This research paper aims to investigate the role of perforated building envelopes in achieving sustainable buildings, exploring their historical evolution, benefits, and design considerations. This paper provides valuable insights into how sustainable building practices can be effectively integrated into the design process by developing an action plan for successfully implementing sustainable perforated building envelopes to improve indoor environmental quality, occupant comfort, and energy efficiency. The research findings can inform the decision-making of architects, engineers, and policymakers seeking to promote sustainable building practices and mitigate the environmental impact of buildings.
Purpose
Online learning has many limitations in studio-based courses, such as architectural design courses, considering the challenges during post-pandemic. Therefore, this study aims to propose a post-pandemic adopted learning approach, which integrates flipped classrooms (FC) with project-based learning (PBL). In addition, this study evaluates the perceptions of students based on and the effects of the proposed learning approach in architectural design.
Design/methodology/approach
This study provides a mixed methodology based on a literature review on the topic to bridge the gaps in previous studies regarding the FC and PBL. In addition, a case study survey including semi-structured interviews, observations questionnaire recruited undergraduate students to generate both qualitative and quantitative data to investigate the perceptions of students based on post-pandemic adopted learning approach.
Findings
This study has highlighted the significance of post-pandemic adopted hybrid learning method, especially in architectural education, whereas the research finds that FC is an appropriate solution to improve design courses with online technologies.
Practical implications
The proposed approach provides specialists to develop and integrate proposals and strategies to enable a better online practice for students and instructors. The proposed approach can enhance the students' interpersonal skills, hence active online learning related architectural design projects.
Originality/value
Recognizing the significance of e-learning in response to the post-pandemic scenario, this study developed and assessed new learning technique that combines online learning with traditional design studios via hybrid learning method.
Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) is a promising technology to decarbonize urban energy systems via harnessing solar energy available on building envelopes. While methods to assess solar irradiation, especially on rooftops, are well established, the assessment on building facades usually involves a higher effort due to more complex urban features and obstructions. The drawback of existing physics-based simulation programs are that they require significant manual modelling effort and computing time for generating time resolved deterministic results. Yet, solar irradiation is highly intermittent and representing its inherent uncertainty may be required for designing robust BIPV energy systems. Targeting on these drawbacks, this paper proposes a data-driven model based on Deep Generative Networks (DGN) to efficiently generate stochastic ensembles of annual hourly solar irradiance time series on building facades with uncompromised spatiotemporal resolution at the urban scale. The only input required are easily obtainable fisheye images as categorical shading masks captured from 3D models. In principle, even actual photographs of urban contexts can be utilized, given they are semantically segmented. The potential of our approach is that it may be applied as a surrogate for time-consuming simulations, when facing lacking information (e.g., no 3D model exists), and to use the generated stochastic time-series ensembles in robust energy systems planning. Our validations exemplify a good fidelity of the generated time series when compared to the physics-based simulator. Due to the nature of the used DGNs, it remains an open challenge to precisely reconstruct the ground truth one-to-one for each hour of the year. However, we consider the benefits of the approach to outweigh the shortcomings. To demonstrate the model’s relevance for urban energy planning, we showcase its potential for generative design by parametrically altering characteristic features of the urban environment and producing corresponding time series on building facades under different climatic contexts in real-time.
Recently, the built environment has become one of the leading sectors in the challenge of decarbonization and energy consumption reduction. Because of the specific use and the complexity of the typological, architectural, and technical characteristics, non-residential buildings represent a challenge to overcome the nearly Zero Energy Building standard and to achieve the objective of Zero or Net Zero Energy Buildings. It is desirable that the energy produced in situ from renewable sources totally covers the energy demand (ZEB); alternatively, the amount of energy self-produced and dispatched into the grid must be greater than (or equal to) the energy withdrawn from the grid (Net ZEB). At the same time, it is necessary not to neglect the economic aspects. The aim of this work is to propose an integrated energy-economic analysis to demonstrate the actual feasibility of new Net ZEB offices in different Italian climate zones. Thus, the energy analysis of a reference building, based on consolidated and cost-effective envelope and HVAC systems, has been carried out through dynamic simulations. The photovoltaic field located on the roof provides the energy needed for lighting, appliances, and HVAC. The obtained results are the energy demand and the energy production from renewable sources for the case study in each Italian climate zone. Moreover, the paper discusses the complexity of the annual energy balance, considering contributions such as grid integrations, self-consumption, energy stored and losses. Finally, the cost assessment of the proposed building has been carried out and compared to the state-of-art, pointing out the economic feasibility of the Net ZEB.
Parametric design and optimization studies have demonstrated high energy savings for dynamic building envelope materials compared to static high-performance envelopes. However, most parametric studies about dynamic buildings were conducted on prototypical buildings with a focus on either optimal geometric settings or idealized material property characteristics, neglecting the potential collective effects of geometric and material design decisions on energy performance. This study investigates the implications of an automated sequential optimization process while designing with dynamic envelope materials. Two case studies were used to quantify energy savings across different optimization-based design procedures and identify the relative importance of various decision categories. When considering realistic design constraints and intrinsic material limitations, geometric optimization alone yielded only 2% energy savings, while dynamic material optimization savings reached up to 19%. Significantly, a sequential design process in which the geometry is configured first before the façade is optimized and vice versa can lead to around 5% missed energy savings. These findings encourage changes to traditional design guidelines and simulation-based building design approaches when working with dynamic façades.
Adaptive façades can enhance interior environmental quality and reduce building energy expenditure. To this end, counterbalancing numerous objectives must be considered during the early stage. However, there remain challenges in this high-performance access, leading to difficulties in obtaining the final design solution. Therefore, this study aims to establish a robust design decision-making process for adaptive façade systems in actual commercial building scales. Firstly, the parametric simulation was implemented in varied climates, simultaneously integrating daylight, energy, and occupants' view analysis. Five comprehensive objectives of maximising daylighting and view quality whilst minimising energy use, thermal discomfort, and visual discomfort were assessed, in which the most challenging criterion, outdoor view, was built precisely upon three all-inclusive facets: view context, view access, and view clarity. Then, the robust multi-criteria decision-making framework was applied to determine the unique optimal design for each selected region with preferences sensitivity analysis. Simulation results revealed that climatic conditions, materials, and configurations significantly impact adaptive façade performance. Meanwhile, optimal design results showed that building energy can save as much as 17% compared to the average design values. Although daylighting and outdoor view criteria meet current building standards, it suggested proper architectural layouts to accomplish the most occupants’ comfort.
The need to reduce energy consumption and related CO2 emissions within buildings requires further in-depth analysis of buildings and their components. Building envelope materials are crucial in that regard. One example is the double-skin façade, a passive energy saving alternative, the various advantages of which include increased acoustic protection, natural lighting, natural ventilation, and user comfort. This type of system can employ lightweight perforated steel or aluminium sheets, that are industrially manufactured. The metal frames in which the sheets are fixed withstand deformation due to wind forces that the perforated sheets alone might otherwise not withstand. In this research, the mechanical behaviour of the perforated sheets is analyzed to establish whether the use of frames is necessary and to determine, through experiments on sheet size materials and thicknesses, the optimal fold dimensions of the sheets to withstand deformation in the absence of frames. To do so, the sheets underwent Finite Element Method (FEM) modelling and laboratory testing, the results of which were carefully analyzed. The performance of the steel sheets was observably better than the thinner aluminium sheets. The sensitivity of the perforated sheets and their behaviour could be observed when the fold supports were attached to the inner structure.
Achieving indoor thermal comfort is essential for productivity, especially in educational environments, and hence has recently attracted considerable attention. Phase change materials (PCMs) integrated into various building components have been used to improve the indoor temperature. In this study, the effectiveness of integrating macro-encapsulated BioPCMs into the walls and ceilings of lecture halls in an educational building was determined via simulation. The simulations considered a hot climate coupled with controlled night ventilation of 15 air change per hour for enhancing the indoor temperature. Using the EnergyPlus software, simulations were performed for different PCM melting temperatures (25, 27 and 29°C) and thicknesses. The PCM with a melting temperature of 27°C yielded a notable reduction (0.5-3.3°C) in the indoor temperature. Furthermore, increasing the layer thickness to 3.75 cm had little effect on the temperature, as indicated by the incomplete charging process during the night.
Dynamic solar screens are operable façade shading systems with perforations that are designed using parametric processes. Architects and facade designers have continually applied design patterns of aesthetically and culturally significant vernacular solar screens for creating contemporary facades in their static-fixed or dynamic-operable states. The purpose of this investigation is to review previous work on dynamic screens and related façade shading, identify research gaps, highlight methodological limitations, and propose future investigation of their unexplored impacts. Solar screens investigated in previous studies were categorized into different types for meta-analysis of their building energy and indoor environmental performance in tropical climates. Several gaps related to the influence of dynamic screens on occupant’s comfort in the indoor environment were identified. Realizing the importance of keeping occupant wellness at the top priority in building design, the authors have proposed a set of hypotheses that describe approaches to investigate and design dynamic screens for occupant well-being.
Thermal comfort plays a significant role in encouraging people to utilize outdoor spaces. Therefore, this feature must be analyzed and evaluated in order to be improvised. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is an alternative technique that predicts thermal comfort and environmental parameters. Validation of CFD is important to ensure its effectiveness. This study assessed the performance of ENVI-met for its ability to estimate thermal indices (PET) by comparing it to field measurement for various points in a street canyon in Port Said, Egypt, throughout the summer and winter seasons. Except for the limited air velocity correlation, the results presented very good agreement, particularly with respect to the final results of the PET visually curved and numerical values, with an index of agreement value ranging from 0.81 to 0.95. The study's conclusions concern the use of the ENVI-met simulation model as a tool for assessing outdoor thermal comfort.
Retrofitting building envelope thermal performance is crucial to ensure adequate interior thermal comfort of the building, minimize cooling load rate and, therefore, reduce overall building energy consumption. The retrofit process of an existing building envelope involves the design team selecting the best performing building materials and components based on various design variables and predefined design objectives. Worldwide, an overall thermal transfer value (OTTV) metric has been developed and used for assessing heat transfer through the building envelope. However, the application of OTTV implicates dealing with many design variables and much information, which makes the design decision-making process time-consuming and complicated. Furthermore, selecting the most appropriate design alternative in terms of OTTV performance while considering the most cost-effective design option could be a very challenging task. Therefore, this research proposes a method for retrofitting building information modelling (RBIM) to achieve a tradeoff design set between two conflicting objectives, namely minimizing OTTV and minimizing the retrofit cost. The prototype system derived from this method integrates BIM authoring tools (e.g., Autodesk Revit®), visual scripting (e.g., Dynamo), and a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) customized in MATLAB®. The applicability of the proposed system is validated with a case study of an office building. The results show that the developed system provides a valuable design decision support system for retrofitting building envelope thermal performance while considering the retrofit cost. Additionally, the system shows an improved level of automation in terms of data management compared to the conventional methods.
In this study, the energy consumption and indoor thermal environment of a radiant ceiling heating and cooling system with three types of transparent building envelopes, namely, ordinary insulating glass (OIG), heat reflective insulating glass (HFIG) and triple silver low-e insulating glass (TSIG), were investigated and compared by experiment and simulation. The annual energy consumption and thermal environment distribution of the radiant ceiling system equipped with the three types of transparent envelope in five different climate zones were obtained. The results show that the energy saving rates of HFIG and TSIG windows are -9.78%-48.00% and 8.82%-63.65% in the five climate zones, compared to the OIG window. It is seen that the TSIG window has greater energy-saving potential in both heating dominant and cooling dominant climate zones. In addition, the annual average air temperature of the room with TSIG window is more stable, which means the thermal environment level is better. It is also found that the response of radiant ceiling system to solar heat gain is different in summer and winter. It has a good response to cooling, and it can timely take away the influence of solar heat gain through the radiation heat transfer. Therefore, the indoor thermal environment level of the rooms with different transparent envelopes has little difference during the cooling season. However, as the response of radiant ceiling systems to heating is poor, the indoor thermal environment is greatly affected by the outdoor parameters and varied with the transparent envelopes. Hence, adopting the transparent envelopes with high performance is preferred in the heating dominant zones.
Transparent envelopes account for a large amount of energy consumption of buildings, especially in hot climate regions. Glass is one of the main materials in transparent envelopes, so modifying the radiative properties of the glass is an alternative way for building energy saving. Here, a semi-transparent radiative cooling (ST/RC) glass was proposed by integrating the selective utilization of solar energy and passive radiative cooling. Comparative experiments based on two small-scale boxes were performed, which shows that the indoor air temperature of the box with the ST/RC glass is lower than that with the ordinary glass and the maximum temperature difference reached 16.4ºC, indicating that ST/RC glass can reduce the waste heat generated in the indoor environment. Besides, the daylighting level with the ST/RC glass is decreased by approximately 2/3 to support comfortable daylighting. Moreover, large-scale modeling of the building located in the Maldives was conducted and results show that the energy consumption of building could be saved by 21%-66.5% when the glass is modified to transmit visible light, reflect other solar irradiance, and emit like a blackbody, which indicates that the strategy of using light and thermal management of glass has the potential to reduce the energy consumption of buildings.
In school buildings, especially learning spaces, good daylight and thermal conditions are important to promote the educational process, as unsatisfactory comfort levels can reduce physical and intellectual performance for both teachers and pupils. However, achieving successful classroom designs is rather complicated, as it requires the balancing of various interrelated factors, which is particularly challenging for hot and dry climates. In recent years, major improvements have been made in building optimization methods, and genetic algorithms used to search for high performing design solutions have shown their efficiency in solving such complex problems. This study shows how such an approach can be applied to optimize the thermal, lighting and energy performance of a middle school classroom in a hot and dry climate. Using a parametric approach and evolutionary multi-objective computation via Octopus plug-in for Grasshopper, various windows-to-wall ratios, wall materials, glass types, and shading devices were combined, to derive potential solutions that achieve a good balance between daylight provision and thermal comfort, while ensuring low energy consumption. The results show that improvements in useful daylight illuminance, adaptive thermal comfort and energy efficiency could be achieved through modification of building envelope parameters. Solutions for different building orientations are explored, providing recommendations for window-to-wall ratios in school buildings in hot and dry climate. The results demonstrate how an optimization methodology can be used in the early stages of the building design process to understand how the building envelope can be tailored to ensure good building performance, both in terms of comfort and energy performance.
In recent years, the demand for energy-efficient buildings and green buildings has increased significantly in India. However, this surge has few hindrances, i.e. the absence of a centralised green material library, alterations in the later stage of design for certification, and few energy certified buildings. This paper proposed a BIM-based workflow that mainstreams this surge of energy-conscious buildings' envelope using Building Envelope Trade-off Method (BETM) in the early design phase. BETM facilitates energy-efficient envelope through simpler calculations based on material thermal properties, orientation and surface area. A BIM library is modelled for commonly used materials and passive features. The developed workflow is demonstrated on a selected building complex, and its effectiveness is tested with a parametric simulation of 216 envelope combinations of different alternative envelope materials, orientations, and passive facade features. This result shows a similar envelope performance factor ratio for the considered orientations, whereas 0.35% and 12.49% reduction is observed in the corresponding peak cooling total load (PCTL) compared to the as-built case. The PCTL provides the necessary insight into building energy analysis considering its surrounding features. The developed workflow will ensure a better performing building envelope according to the Energy Conservation Building Code.
Thermal comfort is a critical component of indoor environments, especially in schools where learning is the main objective. However, thermal comfort comes at a price that many schools are unable to afford. Therefore, it is critical to determine a method to lower the energy costs of a building while still maintaining occupant thermal comfort. The objective of this study is to investigate how three indoor environmental parameters of air speed, humidity, and air temperature influence energy and thermal comfort in classroom environments. We employed a multi-objective optimization method that considers all three thermal parameters in the design and operation of a classroom. This method is demonstrated for three distinct climate locations (very hot and humid, cold and humid, warm and marine). Overall, our findings demonstrate significant energy savings from 1.3 to 9.1 kWh/year/m² for cases where energy reduction is achieved. These values are for cases where the total annual number of hours that more than 10% of people are dissatisfied in a space are 0 to 42 in Miami and San Francisco and 26 to 49 in Boston. This translates to a cost savings of 12,800 per year for the entire building at current market rates. Note that for all locations, there were also cases where the number of hours that more than 10% of people were dissatisfied were reduced from the baseline value while still reducing energy use. This optimization framework shows promise for building mechanical designers seeking to maintain increased levels of thermal comfort throughout the year while lowering energy use.
Recently, achieving outdoor thermal comfort has attracted considerable attention in many studies in regions with hot and humid climates. Sun sails have been used as a traditional street-shading strategy in cities to improve outdoor thermal comfort, but their advantages in achieving thermal comfort in school courtyards remain unexplored. This study improves thermal comfort in school courtyards by studying the effect of the sun sail-shading strategy. A case study using the sun sail-shading strategy in El-Safwa School courtyard in Port Said, Egypt, is simulated during school time. Field measurements were conducted in specific locations in the courtyard. Microclimate models were simulated using ENVI-met V4.4.5 and Rayman 1.2 software. Several proposed cases have been studied based on the courtyard shading coverage ratio varying from 0% to 100% shaded with black sun sails. Hence, by adding 60% or above sun-sail shading in the school courtyard, the simulation results revealed a reduction in the air temperature (Ta), with an average difference of 0.5 °C, reduction in the average predicted mean voted (PMV) values above 0.6, and reduction in the mean radiant temperature (Tmrt) average values in most of the receptor points (approximately more than 20% reduction). The analyzed results of the physiological equivalent temperature (PET) and standard effective temperature (SET) showed the futility of using 40% sun sail-shading in the school courtyard, and the proper court coverage ratio to use is 60%.
This paper focuses on the multi-objective optimization of building envelope parameters in order to enhance the energy and economic performance of buildings. The study carried out for the climates zoned as; cooling dominated and heating dominated. All possible solution scenarios (more than 13 million) that might be encountered in practice, were included in the optimization process. Two conflicting objectives were pursued: to minimize overall thermal energy need and to lower the initial investment cost of the building envelope. NSGA-II genetic algorithm was implemented via developed code in Matlab environment and convergence time of that was shortened. Pareto-Front solutions were presented for two provinces (Osmaniye and Erzurum) of Turkey and life cycle costs of the Pareto-Front solutions have been compared, after the envelope optimization process. The results clearly showed that, the appropriate selection of the building envelope parameters at the preliminary design stage could significantly reduce life cycle cost, beside providing better solution options for zero energy buildings.
Designing envelope configurations of building with the low construction cost and low energy consumption is of important significance to green building. At present, there are some mature professional software for building optimization design, however, these programs run for a long time and require detailed input of building parameters, which makes the design very inconvenient. It is relatively convenient to use some optimization algorithms to optimize the design of buildings. Genetic algorithm is a common algorithm for building design optimization. However, genetic algorithm has the disadvantage of being easy to be trapped into local optimization. Based on this, in this paper, we propose a design optimal method of office building envelope based on quantum genetic algorithm. We optimize the office building envelope structure, such as walls, windows, glass curtain wall, numbers of windows, etc. to minimize the construction cost at the required energy conservation. Compared with the traditional genetic algorithm, in this paper, when using the quantum genetic algorithm makes the design optimization of office building envelope configuration at the required ENVLOAD (energy load of building envelope) value, the total window area are increased by 13.8%, which means that the natural ventilation is better; glass curtain wall ratio is increased by 14%, which means that indoor lighting is better; the cost fall by 0.7%, which means the cost is lower; the generation number to achieve convergence is reduced by 50%, which means the convergence is faster. And compared with original design, the total cost reduces by 35.3%. Compared with other literatures, the construction cost per unit area of envelope in this paper is lower and the building energy load per unit area of envelope is smaller.
The most ambitious challenge for designers is an effective shading system that is able to keep the balance between the daylight harvesting and view out maximization while minimizing discomfort risks and building's energy load. In the literature, several definitions exist for an adaptive façade and many terminologies were introduced and used interchangeably. Therefore, this paper aims to distinguish the existing adaptive system typologies based on their key characteristics. In addition, a review based on a systematic search is conducted to outline possible design approaches towards non-conventional adaptive facades (AFs) through simulations at early stage of design. As the main research outcome, most of the studies evaluated indoor daylighting level and discomfort glare through parametric tools, while none of them proposed a specific control strategy to predict non-conventional adaptive facades' performance. These observations emphasize existing research gaps in this field that can affect the applicability of such facades in real practices.
Adaptive skins and, in particular, adaptive façade play a significant role in the future of environmentally friendly spaces. Meanwhile, occupants' involvement in the process of adaptive façade design and operation is essential to guarantee its usefulness. This study aimed to address two less-attended issues in current literature in the process of adaptive facade design. First, a few research attempted to include users during adaptive facade design processes. Second, less attention is given to the simultaneous optimization of both visual and thermal comfort during adaptive façade design. Given these, an innovative methodology is developed to involve occupant's/s' position inside space while considering comfort issues. Another novelty of this study is the geometry associated with double-sided material. Improvement in visual comfort quantity and heat gain are the objectives of this study for the position of occupant/s. Parametric simulation and Genetic algorithm optimization have been used to carry out this research. On average, there was a 76% improvement in visual comfort of the occupant throughout the year by the proposed system compared to the conventional shading state. Besides, there was in average 60% improvement for the heat gain improvement via the proposed adaptive facade compared to the conventional shading state when the objective function was set to increase the heat gain. Also, when the objective function is set to decrease heat gain, a 59% improvement has been achieved compared to no shading state. Finally, the proposed adaptive facade and the innovative method of design can be used to address the position of the user/s inside space to enhance visual and thermal comfort.
The biggest challenge in building design is to optimize the use of natural energy to provide human comfort and consume less energy. Passive facade technologies have been developed with increased complexity for approaching comfort and sustainability aspects. This study discovers performances of a facade system which is an integration of double-skin facade and perforated screens. This study aims to utilize the double-skin perforated facades with air ventilation ports for buildings to optimize energy saving which is also improving daylight and natural ventilation in Japan. The study is based on building simulation software to analyze building performances. The daylight performances are calculated by simulating with DIVA. The natural ventilation and energy performances are simulated on Design Builder. The perforated screens to get daylight without glare is the screens with the perforated percentage of 40%. This research discovers that the perforated percentage of 50% is the optimum rate for balancing natural ventilation and daylight in spring when the weather across Japan is pleasant to draw natural ventilation. The performances in other periods are also presented in this paper. Linear regression models are presented in this paper can be used for predicting volume flow in the pre-design process by temperature difference for different perforated percentages.