Turkish D-light : accentuating heritage values with daylight

Historic buildings have their own cultural identity, which is often related to their aesthetic qualities such as period characteristics (geometry, size, colour, form and shape), materials and construction. Daylight is one of the primary elements contributing to the distinctiveness of the visual environment of many historic buildings, but is rarely considered as one of the components that shape the character of a building when adaptive preservation schemes of historical buildings are planned. Many historic buildings were originally designed to accommodate activities different to their new use and preserving the quality of daylight that originally contributed to their visual identity is a challenging task. Maintaining the ‘day-lit appearance’ of a building can be particularly problematic if the building is to be used as a museum or a gallery owing to the artefacts’ conservation requirements. This work investigated the opportunities of maintaining the original ambient conditions of renovated historical buildings while meeting the required daylight levels of the proposed new use. The study utilised an annual daylight simulation method and hourly weather data to preserve daylight conditions in renovated historic buildings. The model was piloted in a Turkish bathhouse situated in Bursa, Turkey, that is currently under renovation. The simulation model produces 4483 hourly values of daylight illuminance for a period of a whole year using the computer program Radiance. It is concluded that daylight characteristics should be taken into account when developing a renovation scheme. With increasing pressure on valuing historic buildings in many parts of the world, the work reported here should be beneficial to those concerned with the conservation and adaptive reuse of historic buildings. The study findings could also be useful to those interested in predicting potential energy savings by combining daylighting and electric lighting in historic buildings

Within- and cross-domain effects of environmental factors on students' perception in educational buildings

Students in classrooms are exposed to environmental stimuli in the thermal, visual, acoustic and air quality domains, which affect their overall comfort and performance. Therefore, in recent studies, questionnaires are used to collect information about subjective perceptions and investigate links with physical parameters. Most field studies in educational buildings either focus on a single comfort domain, or consider multiple domains but provide inconsistent questions among the 4 domains (i.e., IAQ, thermal, visual and acoustic). Very few studies have investigated cross-domain effects in a consistent manner, considering satisfaction, comfort and perception aspects. To address this research gap, a survey with consistent questions among the 4 comfort domains was designed and used to collect more than 900 subjective responses from students. The analysis of subjective data together with objective measurements allows: (i) correlating the environmental physical parameters and students' perception in each of the comfort domains; (ii) understanding the students' preferred environmental conditions; and (iii) understanding cross-domain effects, i.e., the effects between the average conditions and the mean vote expressed for another domain. The results show that air temperature, illuminance and sound pressure level are correlated with the sensation in the respective domains, in contrast to CO2 concentration. Regarding cross-effects, the study confirms interference of CO2 concentration and illuminance on thermal sensation as well as the effect of sound pressure level on visual sensation

New Low-Cost Sensing Network for Indoor Environmental Monitoring and Control in Buildings

New types of low-cost sensors have the potential to replace existing sensor networks in buildings, which have high cost and low flexibility in terms of monitoring local indoor environmental quality (IEQ) close to the occupants. The objective of this study is to (i) investigate the reliability, accuracy, robustness, and communication capabilities of low-cost sensor networks and (ii) develop and implement an overall framework of monitoring and control of indoor environmental conditions, embedded in existing control infrastructures or using new system typologies. Different low-cost temperature, humidity, and light sensors, wired and wireless, were tested. The sensors can communicate with a single-board computer, and with the building monitoring and control system, providing flexibility in monitoring IEQ (local sensing), communication (networking) with other devices, as well as in developing new control frameworks. We present results for monitoring and control of indoor thermal conditions using low-cost local sensing with a flexible scheme embedded in existing thermal control infrastructures

Evaluating the performance of shading devices and glazing types to promote energy efficiency of residential buildings

10.1007/s12273-010-0007-2Building Simulation33181-19

Dynamic robotic slip-form casting and eco-friendly building façade design

Robot arm technology has been increasingly considered a future solution for the building industry, which is keen to develop eco-friendly and labor-efficient processes. The automobile industry provides a powerful reference for such a revolution. However, in contrast to the automobile industry, which mostly uses standard industrial materials, such as metal, the building industry still relies on a variety of traditional materials, including concrete cement, brick and clay. Although precast building components have been highly promoted, they present innate constraints, including limitations associated with transportation, storage, and installation capacity, which greatly impact the overall budget. In this paper, research on a dynamic slip-form concrete extrusion method based on a robot arm technique will be presented within the scope of laboratory experiments, on-site fabrication and a design-oriented installation that carefully considers energy efficiency and lighting optimization

Development of Requirements for a Solar Building Conceptual Design Tool

This paper is focused on a discussion of the requirements and specifications for the development of a design tool that can be used for solar-optimized building design. The tool will initially be focused on single family houses and later on small commercial buildings. The solar optimization process refers to optimization of form so as to (i) capture as much solar radiation as possible on the two main surfaces facing near south – a façade and a suitably oriented roof section, and (ii) to utilize as much as possible of the captured solar energy as daylight and/or to be converted to electricity and heat. The first requirement refers to building form while the second refers to solar utilization systems such as building-integrated photovoltaics, solar thermal systems and fenestration systems, as well as energy storage systems. It is concluded that the developed design tool, in order to have as much impact on the design as possible should permit some degree of detailed analysis at the early design stage. Two approaches are possible – development of a customized simulation-design tool, or utilization of detailed simulation tool with a front end that defines most of the required inputs from standard requirements or rules of thumb