Developing a Digital Twin at Building and City Levels: A Case Study of West Cambridge Campus

A digital twin (DT) refers to a digital replica of physical assets, processes, and systems. DTs integrate artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics to create living digital simulation models that are able to learn and update from multiple sources as well as represent and predict the current and future conditions of physical counterparts. However, current activities related to DTs are still at an early stage with respect to buildings and other infrastructure assets from an architectural and engineering/construction point of view. Less attention has been paid to the operation and maintenance (O&M) phase, which is the longest time span in the asset life cycle. A systematic and clear architecture verified with practical use cases for constructing a DT would be the foremost step for effective operation and maintenance of buildings and cities. According to current research about multitier architectures, this paper presents a system architecture for DTs that is specifically designed at both the building and city levels. Based on this architecture, a DT demonstrator of the West Cambridge site of the University of Cambridge in the UK was developed that integrates heterogeneous data sources, supports effective data querying and analysis, supports decision-making processes in O&M management, and further bridges the gap between human relationships with buildings/cities. This paper aims at going through the whole process of developing DTs in building and city levels from the technical perspective and sharing lessons learned and challenges involved in developing DTs in real practices. Through developing this DT demonstrator, the results provide a clear roadmap and present particular DT research efforts for asset management practitioners, policymakers, and researchers to promote the implementation and development of DT at the building and city levels

Flourishing the indoor environment quality of workplaces using the biophilic architectural design

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonThe central argument in this thesis is that workplace users’ health, well-being and productivity are affected by indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and that their overall satisfaction is related to the IEQ factors within the workplace. In addition, it is proposed that enhancing the indoor environment using Biophilic Design can positively influence occupants’ health, well-being and productivity in co-working offices and university research rooms. To test this argument, a methodology based on the Flourish Model was developed to collect interview data, discrete IEQ measurements and post-occupancy evaluation (POE) responses. This thesis is made up of three empirical parts. The first part evaluates occupants’ health, well-being and productivity in the Second Home co-working offices, which contain 30 multidiscipline companies. Data were collected through on-site observation and interviewing 10 HR members; these data were then analysed to determine how the implication of Biophilic Design patterns can help solve several IEQ issues and establish how these patterns are related to overall satisfaction and productivity. The results of this empirical part show two main points: first, the addition of plants as part of the Biophilic Architecture positively affected occupants’ health and well-being positively, and some of these plants controlled the thermal comfort, which includes the temperature and humidity as well as the air quality of the office environment; second, other Biophilic features were added to control noise levels in the space, while some of them were for aesthetic value. However, using some green features for atheistic value is not enough to reach the best environment quality and meet occupant expectations in the office environment. Finally, the implication of the Biophilic patterns is connected to the cost used in a project, starting from adding plants to significant changes in the whole building construction. The second empirical part of this study was conducted in five research rooms at Brunel University London in 2 old and 3 recently developed buildings by surveying the researchers twice and conducting a measurement test using Arduino sensors in five zones for 14 days. The most obvious finding to emerge from this study is that the II qualities of the five key aspects of IEQ, namely thermal comfort, indoor air quality, lighting environment, acoustic environment and office space layout, have significantly positive correlations with occupants’ productivity. Moreover, the participants assured that Biophilic Design offers many ways to improve their offices. Several suggestions have been presented for Biophilic solutions depending on the building age and issues raised. Finally, although some of the measured IEQ conditions were relatively good, with no significant fluctuation across the research rooms, it was noted that there is a difference between objective IEQ data and subjective occupant evaluations. The recently developed buildings which designed with fully double-glazed façades showed the highest overall health, well-being and productivity levels, whereas the old buildings constructed with small windows or with no access to the daylight had the lowest; they had lower window-to-wall ratios. The results support that the measurements do not express the absolute satisfaction of the occupants. Nevertheless, the findings were useful to be considered in the third imperial part. As the main research output, this project created a co-design toolkit that offers an opportunity for designers and architects to indicate their perspectives on improving open-plan workplaces. At the same time, this toolkit helps enhance the office environment by means of Biophilic Design and by bringing the natural environment indoors. This project is the first of its kind to develop a co-design toolkit for workplace design that can be used by designers, architects, students and even stakeholders to improve the design of workplaces in a way that positively affects their occupants. The toolkit was created in a co-design study in which the participants interactively discussed and shared their ideas as to the functionality and design of the toolkit. Then, using tow testing rounds with 6 and 15 designers and architects respectively. The researcher collated and modelled the results in the direction that they wished by using four types of cards: the activity guide, which is designed to explain the aim and the process of the toolkit to the user; the flourish cards, which created to evaluate the existing workplace situation and determine the main IEQ issues; the Biophilic cards, which present different solutions with different user budgets; and finally, the plant cards, which deliver a number of floor and desk plants with some tips that help the user to find the right location for using them.Mutah Universit

Participative Urban Health and Healthy Aging in the Age of AI

This open access book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Conference on String Processing and Information Retrieval, ICOST 2022, held in Paris, France, in June 2022. The 15 full papers and 10 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 33 submissions. They cover topics such as design, development, deployment, and evaluation of AI for health, smart urban environments, assistive technologies, chronic disease management, and coaching and health telematics systems

Age composition and survival of public housing stock in Hong Kong

Emerging notably in more developed regions, building stock ageing which is characterised by shrinking new completions and falling “mortality” has been posing challenges to various stakeholders in built environment. To find way out of this transition, we need to know how long buildings will last these days and the factors leading to their “mortality”. By using data from 1950s till to date, a comprehensive investigation is conducted to analyse the age composition and life expectancy of public housing stock in Hong Kong. What comes after are survival analysis and empirical analysis of those demolished to identify the key factors leading to demolition. Presented in this paper are the preliminary findings as well as the research agenda on the theme to model age composition and survival of both private and public building stocks in Hong Kong and other similar cities in Asia Pacific Rim such as Adelaide and Singapore, together with research activities to formulate policies for sustainable urban management

Evaluation of the new Design Summer Year weather data using parametrical buildings

The Charted Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) updated the near extreme weather (Design Summer Year – DSY) for all 14 locations in the UK in 2016. This new release attempts to address the underlying shortcomings of the previous definition where the averaged dry bulb temperature was the sole metric to choose DSY among source weather years. The aim of this research is to evaluate whether the new definition of the probabilistic DSYs can consistently represent near extreme condition. London historical weather data and their correspondent DSYs were used in this research. Dynamic thermal modelling using EnergyPlus was carried out on large number single zone offices (parametric study) which represent a large portion of cellular offices in the UK. The predicted indoor warmth from the sample building models show that these new definitions are not always able to represent near extreme conditions. Using multiple years as DSY is able to capture different types of summer warmth but how to use one or all of these DSYs to make informed judgement on overheating is rather challenging. The recommended practice from this research is to use more warm years for the evaluation of overheating and choose the near extreme weather from the predicted indoor warmt

The 45th Australasian Universities Building Education Association Conference: Global Challenges in a Disrupted World: Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Approaches in the Built Environment, Conference Proceedings, 23 - 25 November 2022, Western Sydney University, Kingswood Campus, Sydney, Australia

This is the proceedings of the 45th Australasian Universities Building Education Association (AUBEA) conference which will be hosted by Western Sydney University in November 2022. The conference is organised by the School of Engineering, Design, and Built Environment in collaboration with the Centre for Smart Modern Construction, Western Sydney University. This year’s conference theme is “Global Challenges in a Disrupted World: Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Approaches in the Built Environment”, and expects to publish over a hundred double-blind peer review papers under the proceedings

Measuring knowledge sharing processes through social network analysis within construction organisations

The construction industry is a knowledge intensive and information dependent industry. Organisations risk losing valuable knowledge, when the employees leave them. Therefore, construction organisations need to nurture opportunities to disseminate knowledge through strengthening knowledge-sharing networks. This study aimed at evaluating the formal and informal knowledge sharing methods in social networks within Australian construction organisations and identifying how knowledge sharing could be improved. Data were collected from two estimating teams in two case studies. The collected data through semi-structured interviews were analysed using UCINET, a Social Network Analysis (SNA) tool, and SNA measures. The findings revealed that one case study consisted of influencers, while the other demonstrated an optimal knowledge sharing structure in both formal and informal knowledge sharing methods. Social networks could vary based on the organisation as well as the individuals’ behaviour. Identifying networks with specific issues and taking steps to strengthen networks will enable to achieve optimum knowledge sharing processes. This research offers knowledge sharing good practices for construction organisations to optimise their knowledge sharing processes

Smart Energy Management for Smart Grids

This book is a contribution from the authors, to share solutions for a better and sustainable power grid. Renewable energy, smart grid security and smart energy management are the main topics discussed in this book