Assessment of Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) in Transitional Spaces of a High-Rise Building

One passive approach that can significantly reduce energy usage in high-rise buildings is through the creation of non-air conditioned spaces such as transitional spaces. Optimizing passive design would reduce wastage associated with the building’s energy consumption. The study measures the thermal comfort of three types of transitional spaces (sky court, balcony, and rooftop) in a high-rise office building. Based on the assessment of Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET), the outcome showed significant differences in PET in all locations in both wet and dry season. The effectiveness of such area can be improved with the contributions of landscape, maximizing natural ventilation and day lighting where possible.© 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies, Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.Keywords: Thermal comfort; transitional spaces; high-rise; Physiological Equivalent Temperatur

Physical Informal Learning Environment on Campus Ground: A Review

Past few decades, there has been a raft amplifying interest in higher education institutions, nationally and internationally, in the creation of new types of learning environment supporting learner-centered or constructivist pedagogy. This paper reviews the effectiveness of the physical informal learning environment initiated by learners outside their formal lecture hours in higher education. The aim of this paper is to present a synthesis of 40 studies from 1979 to 2016 on pyhsical informal learning setting on campus. Learning is the essential activity of colleges and universities. Commonly learning occurs in classrooms which identified as formal learning and sometimes its results from serendipitous interactions among individuals at transitional spaces which classified as informal learning. Space whether physical or virtual can have an impact on learning. Thus, it can bring people together, encourage exploration, collaboration, and discussion. Space can carry an unspoken message of silence which mentioned as the power of built pedagogy in colleges and universities. Nevertheless, the subject remains topical due to the dynamism of the variables, particularly the pedagogy, learning media, spaces, learners themselves and the study location. However, exploring the intermediate space as physical informal learning environment that affect students’ performance and satisfaction in higher education remain crucial and decisive among educators and researchers. Therefore, there is a growing interest in higher education institutions, nationally and internationally, in the creating of new types of learning environment supporting learnercentered or constructivist pedagogy. Hence, The Next Generation Learning Spaces project team (NGLS) under Australian Learning & Teaching Council ( The University Of Queensland) , explored the interdependence of pedagogy, space, and technology to develop the Pedagogy-Space-Technology (PST) framework which permits institutions to develop new teaching and learning setting that will strengthen student engagement and enhance learning outcomes. This paper contributes to the paramount significance of the quality informal learning environment in order to accomplish functional obligation and cater for learner’s emotional urgency for enthusiasm and touch of identity

Towards green roads in Malaysia : review of road characteristics effects on road surrounding microclimate with respect to roadside trees / Nasibeh FaghihMirzaei ... [et al.]

Due to the rapid Malaysian metropolitan development, some amount of forests and vegetation have been replaced by impervious and artificial urban road surfaces, lead to increasing ambient temperature of many Malaysian urban areas. Urban greenery including roadside trees planting is believed to be a useful mitigation strategy of road surface temperature and thus the local ambient temperature. Malaysian cities appear to have different roadside roads conditions which help cooling the air and providing shade. Many researchers have suggested various environmentally methods to alleviate ambient air temperature by planting the vegetation in urban areas which are closely connected to the roads of a city. However, there is a lack of studies to concern influence factors of roadside trees and road characteristics on each other in the face of surface and air temperature reduction surrounding the road. This study first identifies a pattern on the effects of road characteristics, including road orientation and road width with an overview on the capabilities of roadside tree planting and road design to mitigate road surrounding microclimate. It then provides guidelines for urban development towards green roads in a tropical city

Assessment of Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) in Transitional Spaces of a High-Rise Building

One passive approach that can significantly reduce energy usage in high-rise buildings is through the creation of non-air conditioned spaces such as transitional spaces. Optimizing passive design would reduce wastage associated with the building’s energy consumption. The study measures the thermal comfort of three types of transitional spaces (sky court, balcony, and rooftop) in a high-rise office building. Based on the assessment of Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET), the outcome showed significant differences in PET in all locations in both wet and dry season. The effectiveness of such area can be improved with the contributions of landscape, maximizing natural ventilation and day lighting where possible

Improving Thermal Comfort through Vertical Greeneries in Transitional Spaces for the Tropical Climate: A Review

This paper reviews the potential of transitional space inbuilding for improving thermal comfort by using VerticalGreeneries System (VGS). Transitional space could be defined asa space that is indirectly occupied, located in between the interiorand exterior environment. This place acts as both buffer spacesas well as the circulatory routes. In reality, transitional space iscommonly used for communal area in public building andutilised for domestic purposes in residential building, such as inbalcony. Based on this issue, balcony could be optimised forreplacing the greeneries on the ground level since thedevelopment of infrastructure in the urban areas hassignificantly reducing the quantity of green spaces. To overcomethis issue, integrating vertical greeneries in building is apromising solution although there space is limited. In order tomaximise the VGS performance, multi-layer plant canopyconcept could be introduced. It is believed that multi-layer plantcanopy could improve the thermal quality instead of using singlelayer plant canopy