Interrogating the technical, economic and cultural challenges of delivering the PassivHaus standard in the UK.

A peer-reviewed eBook, which is based on a collaborative research project coordinated by Dr. Henrik Schoenefeldt at the Centre for Architecture and Sustainable Environment at the University of Kent between May 2013 and June 2014. This project investigated how architectural practice and the building industry are adapting in order to successfully deliver Passivhaus standard buildings in the UK. Through detailed case studies the project explored the learning process underlying the delivery of fourteen buildings, certified between 2009 and 2013. Largely founded on the study of the original project correspondence and semi-structured interviews with clients, architects, town planners, contractors and manufacturers, these case studies have illuminated the more immediate technical as well as the broader cultural challenges. The peer-reviewers of this book stressed that the findings included in the book are valuable to students, practitioners and academic researchers in the field of low-energy design. It was launched during the PassivHaus Project Conference, held at the Bulb Innovation Centre on the 27th June 2014

Acts of Cleaning: Activating the interior space of the urban block

In the face of growing densification pressures in Teusaquillo, Bogota, this project revolved around deriving a method to activate the interior space of a typical urban block for (a) the augmentation of public space and (b) the further proliferation of present and future activities. The resulting method synthesizes a variety of architectural operations under a conceptual notion of cleaning in order to thread the different components involved in the strategy. Consequently an attempt has been made at providing a rational design system to tackle the various complexities of the typical urban block in Teusaquillo with the clear aim of activating the interior space of it.Architecture, Urbanism and Building Science

Synergy Between Density and Energy for Building Retrofits In Amsterdam Nieuw-West

The thesis explores the necessity of change for the building stock of Amsterdam driven by the cities climate and densification targets, to develop a design of a retrofit for a building typology that maximizes the areas ability to reach these objectives. The area analysed for the retrofit design was a defined region in Amsterdam Nieuw-west, a current hotbed of developments that aim to regenerate the urban environment. The first demand explored is the need to reduce energy consumption in a building stock primarily made up of post-war buildings to achieve the drastic C02 reductions targets; a necessity which appliesto all existing pre-energy-regulation buildings. Secondly, the demand to densify the city, as the population of Amsterdam continues to grow at a constant rate, fuelling the demand for accommodation and leaving it unmet by supply. The thesis sought to organize and quantify both these needs to identify a building typology that provided the best opportunity for retrofitting for both energysaving and densification, which formulated the following research question:How can the design of a retrofit measure offer integrated solutions to energy reduction and densification for a suitable residential building typology in the housing stock of Nieuw-West Amsterdam?The first part of the research question required identifying the suitable building typology, which was done by collecting available data to categorize and quantify the characteristics of the building typologies present in the area, including their energy demand, the ownership status, type of roof, etc. Together with densification strategies and benchmark energy-saving measures for each building typology a suitable typology approach was developed which identified the 1950’s Portiekflat, owned by social housing corporations, as the typology to base the retrofit design on, using top-up as the main densification strategy and replace and wrap principles for the energy aspect of the retrofit. Moreover, the final results for the most suitable typology showed an estimated C02 emission reduction of 19200 tons and an added capacity of 31900m2, which represents a potential C02 emission reduction of 5.8% and 2.5% increase in densification of the whole existing building stock in the area.The second part focuses on systematically formulating the design of the retrofit measure to understand the central design decisions for choosing different design solutions to form an overall design strategy. Together with the literatureresults, the main design aspects of the retrofit measure are identified that serve as elements of the design strategy.These include energy performance, accessibility, structure, and housing quality, to which individual approaches are developed for the widespread application of the building typology together with the packaged decision paths that lead to them. The resulting combinations of approaches provide the design strategy which integrates the design aspects of the retrofit measure together and provides the basis for the final retrofit design. At this stage, the design explores the technical solutions of the chosen design strategy for a case-study building, including the application of retrofit measures, construction, and the building services. However, the primary relevance and answer to the research question is provided by the design process, manifested by three final products, the retrofit for energy-reduction and topping up the toolbox, the design decision tool and design strategy brief, which provides the different integrations between design aspects given the design decisions. In conclusion, the final research at its core aims to offer a more significant incentive to social housing corporations by aligning Amsterdam’s need to densify with the need to energy-retrofit. In other words, densification can be used as fuel to power and accelerate an almost stagnant energy-retrofit rate which is missing the opportunity to tap into huge energy-saving potentials.City-ze

Punctuation in Teusaquillo: Chair of Methods and Analysis Studio Positions in Practice

Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Methods and Analysis | Positions in Practic

El derecho público en Iberoamérica. Libro homenaje al profesor Jaime Vidal Perdomo. Tomos I y II

La obra que se entrega hoy es un gran ejemplo de la riqueza académica con la que todos cuentan en Iberoamérica, motor de una nueva integración, que mueve y motiva por encima de intereses políticos y partidarios. Para una mejor lectura de las evoluciones y las expectativas en derecho público en Iberoamérica, así como del balance del derecho administrativo colombiano, en sus primeros cien años de justicia contencioso-administrativa, en este orden de ideas se ha dividido la publicación en dos tomos. El primero de ellos se divide en tres partes: derecho constitucional, teoría general del derecho administrativo, y acto y procedimiento administrativo. El segundo tomo viene distribuido en cinco partes: la primera parte se ha denominado contratos administrativos, la segunda parte régimen local, la tercera parte, denominada bienes del Estado, la cuarta parte, contencioso-administrativo y la última parte, se ha descrito como temas varios. En ella se encuentran reflexiones sobre la evolución de la teoría del daño especial en Colombia. Con lo anterior, se espera haber cumplido con un buen balance bicentenario del derecho público en Iberoamérica y del derecho administrativo colombiano en estos cien primeros años de justicia contencioso-administrativa, en homenaje al maestro Jaime Vidal Perdomo, eximio jurista colombiano consagrado al estudio y análisis del derecho público y exponente calificado y reconocido de la academia en Colombia y en los países iberoamericanos