69,799 research outputs found
Energieeffizienz im Altbau: Werden die Sanierungspotenziale überschätzt? Ergebnisse auf Grundlage des ista-IWH-Energieeffizienzindex
A core element of the European Climate Protection Policy is the reduction of Energy usage in private households. Legal instruments focus particularly on private multifamily housing. When refurbishing or building a new home, the German regulation for energy saving in buildings and building systems, Energieeinsparverordnung (EnEV 2009), thereby formulates relatively strict standards on energy conservation. But these standards mainly address the technical potentials of energy efficiency gains instead of considering market conditions and different types of housing, especially their age. Theory suggests that legal settings therefore retain owners to refurbish their homes, when returns on investment are negative, especially in regions where market conditions do not allow for higher rents or the costs of refurbishment are too high. The article presents evidence for these theoretical considerations: based on a large scale sample provided by the company ista Germany, it can be shown, that energy usage differs by the age of dwellings and by the standard of refurbishment. Data suggests that the assumed potentials of energy conservation, which are mainly motivated by technical considerations, are too high. The differences may be a result of different cost functions of refurbishment. Further evidence for this finding is provided by architectural considerations. As a result, the article suggests to legally distinguishing between different types of housing and to consider market conditions, when providing public funding for energy efficiency. It is suggested to implement a two multidimensional strategy, considering climate protection, urban development issues and the rationality of real estate investors.
A methodological comparison between energy and environmental performance evaluation
The European Union is working on strategies in order to increase the energy efficiency of buildings. A useful solution is to identify the energy performance of buildings through the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), as it provides information for the comparison of buildings with different architectural typology, shape, design technology and geographic location. However, this tool does not assess the real energy consumption of the building and does not always take into account its impact on the environment. In this work, two different types of analysis were carried out: one based only on the energy efficiency and the other one based on the environmental impact. Those analyses were applied on a standard building, set in three different Italian locations, with the purpose of obtaining cross-related information. After the evaluation of the results, interventions on some parameters (walls insulation, windows frame, filler gas in the insulated glazing) have been identified in order to improve the energy behavior of the building with an acceptable environmental impact. The aim of this paper is to propose a methodology that integrates the EPC with green building rating systems, leading to a more conscious choice of retrofit interventions as a compromise between energy performances and environmental impact
Hurst Park housing design competition: environmental design review
This study expands on an environmental design report in partial fulfillment of the writers’ M.Phil in environmental design in architecture. The scope of this study is to review how environmental issues enter into the creative process of an environmental design assignment. The assignment integrates within the design process physical and software tools. The study proposes that core environmental guidelines are generative in the design process and environmental tools function best as assessment, validation and fine-tuning of that process
Zero and low carbon buildings: A driver for change in working practices and the use of computer modelling and visualization
Buildings account for significant carbon dioxide emissions, both in construction and operation. Governments around the world are setting targets and legislating to reduce the carbon emissions related to the built environment. Challenges presented by increasingly rigorous standards for construction projects will mean a paradigm shift in how new buildings are designed and managed. This will lead to the need for computational modelling and visualization of buildings and their energy performance throughout the life-cycle of the building.
This paper briefly outline how the UK government is planning to reduce carbon emissions for new buildings. It discusses the challenges faced by the architectural, construction and building management professions in adjusting to the proposed requirements for low or zero carbon buildings. It then outlines how software tools, including the use of visualization tools, could develop to support the designer, contractor and user
Proposal of sustainable and eco-exurban communities at the western desert development corridor in Egypt
Worldwide energy assessments now indicate that improving the energy
efficiency and sustainability of buildings, and urban communities could save our
planet and free-up enormous amounts of current energy expenses. In addition,
greater reliance on sustainability offers countries worldwide means of
maintaining economic growth and environmental quality. In this rapidurbanizing
world, cities hold the key to achieving a sustainable balance between
the Earth's resources and its human needs. Industrialization in developing
countries has led to urban health problems on an unprecedented scale. Cities
around the world affect not just the health of their people but the health of the
planet. Urban areas take up very diminutive percentage of the world's surface but
consume the bulk of vital resources. This research paper represents a holistic
proposal which primarily aims to lessen the harm poorly designed urban
communities and buildings in Egypt’s big cities like Cairo and Alexandria cause.
It draws attention towards exurban developments that are able to use the best of
eco-building approaches in logical combination with the best of technological
advances and renewable energy resources. The ultimate goal of this proposal is
to put forward a sustainable-oriented development to make possible homes,
offices, even entire subdivisions of suburban and exurban for newly proposed
Egyptian communities away from the narrow-valley along the Nile and towards
the Western Desert Development Corridor WDDC that are net producers of
energy, food, clean water and air, beauty, and healthy human and biological
communities. This paper proposes the methodology that should be undertaken in
order to make possible the design of such ecological urban communities
A Taxonomy for Management and Optimization of Multiple Resources in Edge Computing
Edge computing is promoted to meet increasing performance needs of
data-driven services using computational and storage resources close to the end
devices, at the edge of the current network. To achieve higher performance in
this new paradigm one has to consider how to combine the efficiency of resource
usage at all three layers of architecture: end devices, edge devices, and the
cloud. While cloud capacity is elastically extendable, end devices and edge
devices are to various degrees resource-constrained. Hence, an efficient
resource management is essential to make edge computing a reality. In this
work, we first present terminology and architectures to characterize current
works within the field of edge computing. Then, we review a wide range of
recent articles and categorize relevant aspects in terms of 4 perspectives:
resource type, resource management objective, resource location, and resource
use. This taxonomy and the ensuing analysis is used to identify some gaps in
the existing research. Among several research gaps, we found that research is
less prevalent on data, storage, and energy as a resource, and less extensive
towards the estimation, discovery and sharing objectives. As for resource
types, the most well-studied resources are computation and communication
resources. Our analysis shows that resource management at the edge requires a
deeper understanding of how methods applied at different levels and geared
towards different resource types interact. Specifically, the impact of mobility
and collaboration schemes requiring incentives are expected to be different in
edge architectures compared to the classic cloud solutions. Finally, we find
that fewer works are dedicated to the study of non-functional properties or to
quantifying the footprint of resource management techniques, including
edge-specific means of migrating data and services.Comment: Accepted in the Special Issue Mobile Edge Computing of the Wireless
Communications and Mobile Computing journa
Architectural and Management Strategies for the Design, Construction and Operation of Energy Efficient and Intelligent Primary Care Centers in Chile
Primary care centers are establishments with elevated social relevance and high operational
energy consumption. In Chile, there more than 628 family healthcare centers (CESFAM) have been
built in the last two decades and with plans for hundreds more in the next few years. We revised
the architecture, construction management and energy performance of five CESFAM centers to
determine possible instances of overall improvement. Staff was interviewed, and state documents
reviewed, which allowed the conceptualization of the architectonic and energy structure of the
centers, as well as the process of implementation. At the same time, energy simulations were done
for each one of the centers, controlling for different climates, construction solutions and orientations.
Our study revealed that strategies employed by the primary healthcare centers in Chile have aided a
progressive implementation of establishments with elevated costs and materialization times, as well
as neglect for climatic conditions. These energy evaluations show relevant and consistent impacts
of the architectural form and material conditions, especially in southern zones, demonstrating the
need to work with shared knowledge resources such as BIM. There is a clear necessity to define
technological, morphological and construction strategies specific to each climate zone in order to
achieve energetically efficient and intelligent healthcare establishments
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