Community Design Parameters and the Performance of Residential Cogeneration Systems

The integration of cogeneration systems in residential and mixed-use communities has the potential of reducing their energy demand and harmful emissions and can thus play asignificant role in increasing their environmental sustainability. This study investigated the impact of selected planning and architectural design parameters on the environmental and economic performances of centralized cogeneration systems integrated into residential communities in U.S.cold climates. Parameters investigated include: 1) density, 2) use mix, 3) street configuration, 4) housing typology, 5) envelope and building systems' efficiencies, and 6) passive solar energyutilization. The study integrated several simulation tools into a procedure to assess the impact of each design parameter on the cogeneration system performance. This assessment procedure included: developing a base-line model representing typical design characteristics of U.S. residential communities; assessing the cogeneration system's performance within this model using three performance indicators: percentage of reduction in primary energy use, percentage of reduction in CO2 emissions; and internal rate of return; assessing the impact of each parameter on the system performance through developing 46 design variations of the base-line model representing potential changes in each parameter and calculating the three indicators for each variation; and finally, using a multi-attribute decision analysis methodology to evaluate the relative impact of each parameter on the cogeneration system performance. The study results show that planning parameters had a higher impact on the cogeneration system performance than architectural ones. Also, a significant correlation was found between design characteristics identified as favorable for the cogeneration system performance and those of sustainable residential communities. These include high densities, high use mix, interconnected street networks, and mixing of housing typologies. This indicates a higher potential for integrating cogeneration systems in sustainable communities.Keywords: cogeneration; residential & mixed use communities; energy efficiency; district heatin

Integrating Environmental Performance Criteria in Architectural Design Studios

In recent years, the need to increase the environmental sustainability of the builtenvironment has been clearly established, and an increasing number of built environmentprofessionals are now aiming to design high-performance buildings. However, numerous studies have clearly indicated that achieving high-performance buildings, not to mention zero-energy or carbon-neutral ones, necessitates the integration of environmental performance criteria in the early stages of the design process, where they can be most effective. While a couple of decades ago such integrationwas difficult to achieve beyond the general design guidelines or rules-of-thumb level, both of which areinadequate to address the specific circumstances of each project, recent advances in buildingperformance simulation tools now allow architects to effectively include building performance criteria inthe early stages of their form-making processes. In the case of architectural education, an even moreurgent need exists to introduce new generations of architects to the principle of integratingenvironmental performance criteria in the design process, and to train them to utilize the latestavailable tools to achieve this. This, however, requires a change from the traditional studio format inwhich projects are evaluated solely or primarily based on their form/image into one in which projectsare evaluated comprehensively based on multiple criteria that include environmental performance aswell as other relevant design objectives. The time limitations and wide range of issues typically coveredin studios, however, make it difficult to also teach students the skills needed to effectively utilizeperformance simulation tools. This paper aims to provide a review of previous efforts to integrateenvironmental performance criteria in the design process in general and in design studios in particular,and presents a proposed collaborative seminar/studio model, which utilizes a seminar to introducestudents to the different topics and building performance simulation tools necessary to understand andintegrate issues of environmental performance in their designs. These performance considerations arethen integrated into design projects in a studio, which runs concurrently with the seminar. In addition todescribing the proposed model, the paper will also present results and conclusions from its first year ofimplementation in the University of Texas at San Antonio

Leadership in Architectural Research: Between Academia and the Profession

Recent decades have witnessed a notable expansion of architectural research activities, with respect to both subject and methodology. This expansion can be mostly credited to an increase in government and private funding of primarily academic research initiatives. More recently, however, a noticeable increase in research activities within the architectural profession makes it possible to argue that it is the profession itself that is now taking leadership in the development of contemporary research agendas. This growing significance of architectural research, in both academia and the profession,is ultimately a response to the diverse challenges facing the profession; most notably, the issue of environmental sustainability, but also including the rapid pace of technological change, the increase ddiversity of users, and the growing complexity of architectural projects. Engaging research is an essential factor in facing these challenges as well as taking full advantage of the opportunities they offer. For this research to be most effective, however, a greater perspective and a clearer definition of its role and the goals it can aspire to, in both academia and the profession, are needed; and most importantly, the question becomes, how do we foster a more integrated research culture between academia and the profession

Methods for Integrating Spatial Analysis in Assessment of Community Sustainability

Faced with a large amount of data, obtaining useful information and providing effective support for urban planning is a new and increasingly difficult challenge. The effectiveness of planning decisions can be greatly enhanced by providing planning professionals, policy makers, and other stakeholders with methods and tools to evaluate the different impacts of proposed planning decisions on urban sustainability at the neighborhood, city and regional scales. These methods and tools should rely on quantifiable metrics and indicators that can be easily measured and tracked over time. Incorporating interactive forms of decision making in planning processes using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is an approach that provides an effective means to address this challenge, and GIS applications are increasingly being used to develop such metrics and systems. Existing capabilities of GIS systems can provide effective strategic decision support to planners and private and public organizations and assist them in enhancing their information infrastructure. This paper provides a review of two recently completed studies utilizing GIS applications and related tools in assessing different aspects of community sustainability in the City of San Antonio and the South Texas region. The two case studies, conducted by the authors, are used to illustrate the capabilities of spatial analysis using GIS applications at the neighborhood and regional scales respectively. The paper presents and analyzes the methodologies used in the two case studies as a means of illustrating different approaches in utilizing GIS capabilities in the assessment of urban and community sustainability. Policy implications forlocal governments and recommendations for future utilization of the models and metrics developed in both studies are also identified and discussed

Cogeneration and community design: performance based model for optimization of the design of U.S. residential communities utilizing cogeneration systems in cold climates

The integration of cogeneration technologies in residential communities has the potential of reducing energy demand and harmful emissions. This study investigated the impact of selected design parameters on the environmental and economic performances of cogeneration systems integrated into residential communities in cold U.S. climates following a centralized or a decentralized integration approach. Parameters investigated include: 1) density, 2) use mix, 3) street configuration, 4) housing typology, 5) envelope and building systems' efficiencies, 6) renewable energy utilization, 7) cogeneration system type, 8) size, and 9) operation strategy. Based on this, combinations of design characteristics achieving an optimum system performance were identified. The study followed a two-phased mixed research model: first, studies of residential community design and three case studies of sustainable residential communities were analyzed to identify key design parameters; subsequently, simulation tools were utilized to assess the impact of each parameter on cogeneration system performance and to optimize the community design to improve that performance. Assessment procedures included: developing a base-line model representing typical design characteristics of U.S. residential communities; assessing the system performance within this model, for each integration approach, using three performance indicators: reduction in primary energy use, reduction in CO2 emissions; and internal rate of return; assessing the impact of each parameter on the system performance through developing 46 design variations of the base-line model representing changes in these parameters and calculating the three indicators for each variation; using a multi-attribute decision analysis methodology to evaluate the relative impact of each parameter on the system performance; and finally, developing two design optimization scenarios for each integration approach. Results show that, through design optimization, existing cogeneration technologies can be economically feasible and cause reductions of up to 18% in primary energy use and up to 42% in CO2 emissions, with the centralized approach offering a higher potential for performance improvements. A significant correlation also existed between design characteristics identified as favorable for cogeneration system performance and those of sustainable residential communities. These include high densities, high mix of uses, interconnected street networks, and mixing of housing typologies. This indicates the higher potential for integrating cogeneration systems in sustainable residential communities

FisheyeMODNet: Moving Object Detection on Surround-view Cameras for Autonomous Driving

Moving Object Detection (MOD) is an important task for achieving robust autonomous driving. An autonomous vehicle has to estimate collision risk with other interacting objects in the environment and calculate an optional trajectory. Collision risk is typically higher for moving objects than static ones due to the need to estimate the future states and poses of the objects for decision making. This is particularly important for near-range objects around the vehicle which are typically detected by a fisheye surroundview system that captures a 360± view of the scene. In this work, we propose a CNN architecture for moving object detection using fisheye images that were captured in autonomous driving environment. As motion geometry is highly non-linear and unique for fisheye cameras, we will make an improved version of the current dataset public to encourage further research. To target embedded deployment, we design a lightweight encoder sharing weights across sequential images. The proposed network runs at 15 fps using Jetston Nvidia TX2 embedded GPU at accuracy of 40% IoU and 69.5% mIoU