Quantifying the effects of interior surface reflectance on indoor lighting

Abstract The current study analyzed the relationship between reflectance of interior surfaces and distribution of artificial light through visual comfort indices by DIALux evo software. The relationships were assessed through a statistical analysis by SPSS. The quantitative comparison between surface reflectance and these indices showed that wall visible reflection coefficient had the most important role for determining the variations of visual comfort parameters. The findings of this work could be applied in interior spaces mainly designed based on artificial lighting, such as museums, galleries and indoor exhibitions also by paying attention to energy saving perspective

The essence of future smart houses: from embedding ICT to adapting to sustainability principles

In the context of intelligent environments, the smart houses are often pointed as one of the main constituents of smarter living environments. This study attempts to theoretically analyze case models of smart houses in order to identify their essence and characteristics. The results show that the most significant intelligent values embodied in smart houses embrace technologies of the functional automation. In fact, smart houses are substantially intertwined with integrated ICT technologies which aim to ensure comfortable living environments. Despite the identified challenges, the proliferation of smart houses into urban areas requires an integration of them in the city for creating intelligent environments. As a result, the promotion and integration of smart houses with other smarter elements of cities could archive a significant enhancement of the quality of life and a stronger urban sustainability

Sustainable energy performances of green buildings: a review of current theories, implementations and challenges

This study targets to elucidate the essence of sustainability in green building design implementations. In this regard, the study draws attention to the sustainable energy performances of green buildings to identify the influential parameters based upon the contemporary successful accomplishments. The study elaborates on the contemporary trends and applications of green building design and the respective impacts on sustainable developments. As a result, the analytical review confirms that the sustainable energy performance of green buildings has been transformed to a sensible and practical resolution to alleviate the CO2 emissions and diminish the building sector energy consumption. In addition, with view to the current challenges and barriers, the study concludes that; it is still crucial to identify and develop efficient energy solutions associated with green buildings for addressing the future energy demands. Likewise, the findings highlight that the sustainable energy performances associated with integrated technologies and renewable energy systems are still intertwined with significant challenges related to the fundamental parameters of cost, maintenance, and operation. In conclusion, the contemplations of the research findings are recommended to be taken into consideration by architects, engineers and developers for the development of future eco-cities with an explicit viewpoint towards developing greener and smarter built environments

Sustainable New Brick and Thermo-Acoustic Insulation Panel from Mineralization of Stranded Driftwood Residues

There is considerable interest recently in by-products for application in green buildings. These materials are widely used as building envelope insulators or blocks. In this study, an experimental study was conducted to test stranded driftwood residues as raw material for possible thermo-acoustic insulation panel and environmentally sustainable brick. The thermal and acoustic characteristics of such a natural by-product were examined. Part of samples were mineralized by means of cement-based additive to reinforce the material and enhance its durability as well as fire resistance. Several mixtures with different sizes of ground wood chips and different quantities of cement were investigated. The thermo-acoustic in-lab characterization was aimed at investigating the thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, volumetric specific heat, and acoustic transmission loss. All samples were tested before and after mineralization. Results from this study indicate that it is possible to use stranded driftwood residues as building materials with competitive thermo-acoustic properties. In fact, the thermal conductivity was shown to be always around 0.07 W/mK in the unbound samples, and around double that value for the mineralized samples, which present a much higher volumetric specific heat (1.6 MJ/m3K) and transmission loss capability. The lignin powder showed a sort of intermediate behavior between the unbound and the mineralized samples.The authors would like to thank Gabriele Franceschetti and CVR s.r.l. for assisting the mineralization procedure of the samples. Anna Laura Pisello’s acknowledgments are due to the “CIRIAF program for UNESCO” in the framework of the UNESCO Chair “Water Resources Management and Culture”, for supporting her research. The research was founded by the Italian Environmental Ministry with an agreement entitled “Recovery and energy valorization of stranded driftwood residues” in 2014–2016. The research team leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 657466 (INPATH–TES) and No. 678407 (ZERO-PLUS)

Thermal comfort conditions of shaded outdoor spaces for local and international students at Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang

In the recent years, the accelerated rate of urban growth in tropical cities highlights the critical necessity of creating more outdoor environments for leisure and recreation activities of citizens. Nevertheless, the outdoor thermal environment and the actual thermal sensation of users as subjective parameters have not been fully explored in outdoor environments of hot and humid climate. This fact elucidates the need for exploring human thermal comfort in outdoor spaces within hot and humid tropical climate, taking into account the objective microclimatic parameters and the human subjective responses. Consequently, in this research, a quantitative field study research method was applied to investigate the thermal comfort conditions of outdoor environments in hot and humid tropical climate of Malaysia. The study concentrated on the thermal conditions of shaded outdoor spaces in Universiti Putra Malaysia campus and thermal sensation of individuals using these spaces. Correspondingly, the thermal conditions of outdoor spaces are evaluated based upon the measurement of major microclimatic parameters (air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and mean radiant temperature), while the actual thermal perception of users was captured simultaneously using a questionnaire survey. The study focused on the students of university including local and international students as the respondents. Meanwhile, this research utilized the appropriate outdoor thermal comfort index, entitled Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET) to assess the conditions of human thermal comfort in different outdoor spaces of study area. Results from this study indicated that both environmental and human parameters contribute considerably to the condition of the human thermal comfort in outdoor spaces. Thus, this fact reflects that thermal comfort approaches must be analyzed according to human parameters and subjective responses as well as objective environmental parameters in order to understand the complexity of thermal comfort conditions in outdoor environment. Consequently, the study also found that there is a significant difference between the thermal comfort perceptions of local and international individuals. These findings confirmed the poor tolerance of international students and the influential effects of adaptation and acclimatization of local students regarding the specific climatic conditions of the region. The finding of this study could be applied in the design decision-making concerning outdoor spaces for creating thermally comfortable environments which could lead to increasing the usage of outdoor spaces. In conclusion, the final outcome of study contributes towards improving the outdoor thermal comfort conditions of users within hot and humid tropical contexts to enhance the quality of outdoor life in urban area

Influence of adaptation on human thermal comfort in outdoor areas of Malaysia

Basically, outdoor spaces are perceived as the integral constituent of urban design developments in order to provide the opportunities for recreational activities. Thereby, thermal comfort of outdoor spaces is one of the substantial issues which must be highly considered within their design process. Nevertheless, the human responses to the outdoor environment and actual thermal sensation experienced by individuals as subjective human parameters have not been fully investigated in outdoor thermal comfort studies. Accordingly, this study intends to concentrate on the human thermal comfort conditions of outdoor environments in hot and humid tropical climate as the main focus of this research. This paper compares available assessments of outdoor thermal comfort to explain the differences between the tolerances of people of different regions. The findings of thermal comfort investigations could be applied into improving the quality of urban areas in order to increase the outdoor activities of citizens and use of outdoor spaces in hot and humid countries. The study contributes towards understanding the circumstances of creating thermally comfortable environments to develop a widespread climatic criterion for human comfort in outdoor urban areas

The Concept of Zero Energy Intelligent Buildings (ZEIB): A Review of Sustainable Development for Future Cities

It is noticed that intelligent buildings are aimed to consider social, environmental and economic values beside a substantial focus to the automated technological attributes. Due to many promising green building initiatives, the accelerated level of interests towards the applications of information technology and advanced control techniques in architecture design has been observed. With a viewpoint to the sustainable development of future cities, attributing the eventual impacts of climate change, various interrelated green building design approaches have been implemented. This study aims to elucidate the significant advancements of intelligent building design as a key constituent of eco-city development for creating greener and effective built environments. Current effort in this study is also geared toward considerable and practical implementations that were carried out in order to create buildings with zero energy consumption. Emphasis is placed upon reviewing the recent theories, attempts, implementations, and challenges towards the development of zero energy intelligent buildings (ZEIB). The findings inferred from the theoretical analysis confirm that the significant contribution of ZEIB concept will end up for the sustainable development of future eco-cities

Intelligent Facades in Low-Energy Buildings

Growing interest in development of innovative solutions for enhancement of sustainability in the built environments has been observed in recent years. According to the main constituents of buildings particularly in building envelopes, facades are expected to play a significant role towards the promotion of sustainable design in low energy buildings. This study presents a holistic review towards the analysis of ‘intelligent facades’ according to their types, current implementations, challenges, and ultimate impacts. Intelligent facades need to be responsive and conscious to the local climate, outdoor environment, and indoor spaces with view to parameters such as energy performance, thermal comfort, indoor air quality, visual comfort, etc. The findings demonstrate that energy modeling and simulations should be performed during the early stage of design process of buildings to ensure the practicality and effectiveness of any green implementations in buildings. In conclusion, the study recommends the intelligent facades to become an inherent constituent of green buildings for future development of low energy buildings

The Concept of Zero Energy Intelligent Buildings (ZEIB): A Review of Sustainable Development for Future Cities

It is noticed that intelligent buildings are aimed to consider social, environmental and economic values beside a substantial focus to the automated technological attributes. Due to many promising green building initiatives, the accelerated level of interests towards the applications of information technology and advanced control techniques in architecture design has been observed. With a viewpoint to the sustainable development of future cities, attributing the eventual impacts of climate change, various interrelated green building design approaches have been implemented. This study aims to elucidate the significant advancements of intelligent building design as a key constituent of eco-city development for creating greener and effective built environments. Current effort in this study is also geared toward considerable and practical implementations that were carried out in order to create buildings with zero energy consumption. Emphasis is placed upon reviewing the recent theories, attempts, implementations, and challenges towards the development of zero energy intelligent buildings (ZEIB). The findings inferred from the theoretical analysis confirm that the significant contribution of ZEIB concept will end up for the sustainable development of future eco-cities