Architecture Commons^™

The Neighborhood As An Energy-Generating Community The Case Of El-Banafseg Residential Neighborhood, East Cairo, Amany G. Micheal Prof., Mona Helmy Dr.

Centre for Advanced Materials

Nowadays, energy consumption is a global challenge. This is due to the shortage of several energy sources, and consequently, to their increasing prices. This paper argues that by using an integrative approach for using various energy harvesting techniques, a typical residential neighborhood can be operated as a self-generator of its needed energy, or part of it.

The paper follows a mixed qualitative, experimental, and numerical simulation approaches to examine the practicality of the paper hypothesis. It uses Space syntax modeling theory (a socio-spatial software) to analyze the pedestrian flow to indicate the potential locations of the kinetic energy harvesting Piezoelectric …

Solar And Rain Catching Canopy. Urban Oasis, Afolabi Ibitoye, Langston Clark, Elena Zimareva, Evan Banks, Alexander Aptekar

Publications and Research

The Urban Oasis is designed to work within existing “pocket parks” in New York City as a combined rainwater collector, personal electronics charging station and resting designation for New Yorkers. Intended to not only lessen the demand on the city power grid by using renewable energy to charge devices, the urban oasis is also intended to mitigate grey water overfill in New York’s combined sewer system and, in general, serve as a model for responsible environmental stewardship in urban areas.

The important technical aspects of the canopy specifically analyzed were:

a) how much rainwater could the canopy be expected to …

Sensitivity Studies Of A Low Temperature Low Approach Direct Cooling Tower For Building Radiant Cooling Systems, Medhi Nasrabadi, Donal Finn, Ben Costelloe

Conference Papers

Recent interest in cooling towers as a mechanism for producing chilled water, together with the evolution of radiant cooling, have prompted a review of evaporative cooling in temperate maritime climates. The thermal efficiency of such systems is a key parameter, as a measure of the degree to which the system has succeeded in exploiting the cooling potential of the ambient air. The feasibility of this concept depends largely however, on achieving low approach water temperatures within an appropriate cooling tower, at acceptable levels of energy performance. Previous experimental work for a full scale evaporative cooling system has shown that it …

Using Life Cycle Assessment Methods To Guide Architectural Decision-Making For Sustainable Prefabricated Modular Buildings, Jeremy Faludi, Michael Lepech, George Loisos

Dartmouth Scholarship

Within this work, life cycle assessment modeling is used to determine top design priorities and quantitatively inform sustainable design decision-making for a prefabricated modular building. A case-study life-cycle assessment was performed for a 5,000 ft² prefabricated commercial building constructed in San Francisco, California, and scenario analysis was run examining the life cycle environmental impacts of various energy and material design substitutions, and a structural design change. Results show that even for a highly energy-efficient modular building, the top design priority is still minimizing operational energy impacts, since this strongly dominates the building life cycle's environmental impacts. However, as an …

Ecological Payback Time Of An Energy-Efficient Modular Building, Jeremy Faludi, Michael Lepech

Dartmouth Scholarship

Ecological payback time was calculated for demolishing an existing commercial building with average energy performance and replacing it with an energy-efficient, prefabricated building. A life-cycle assessment was performed for a 5,000 ft2 commercial building designed by Project Frog and prefabricated in San Francisco, California, and compared to the impacts of annual energy consumption and continued status quo operation of a comparable average commercial building. Scenarios were run both with and without rooftop solar panels intended to make the prefabricated building net zero energy. The analysis considers the materials and mof the existing building, compared to continued annual energy use of …

Thermal Performance Of Low Approach Evaporative Cooling Systems In Buildings, Ben Costelloe, Donal Finn

Conference Papers

Meteorological enthalpy analysis of temperate and maritime climates above 45˚N suggests that the water-side evaporative cooling technique has considerable unrealised potential with contemporary "high temperature" building cooling systems - such as chilled ceilings. As low approach conditions are the key to exploiting the cooling potential of the ambient air, thermal performance at such conditions needs to be investigated. To address the research issues a test rig, based on an open cooling tower and plate heat exchanger and designed to maximise evaporative cooling potential, has been constructed at DIT. A combination of experimental measurement and analysis is used in the investigations. …

Thermal Efficiency Characteristics Of Indirect Evaporative Cooling Systems, Ben Costelloe, Donal Finn

Conference Papers

Recent developments in enhancing heat transfer in cooling towers, together with the success of chilled ceilings, have prompted a review of the evaporative cooling technique. in temperate maritime climates. The thermal efficiency of such systems is a key parameter, as a measure of the degree to which the system has succeeded in exploiting the cooling potential of the ambient air. This paper presents the results of experimental research into the thermal efficiency of a water-side open indirect evaporative cooling test rig designed to achieve low (1-4 K) approach conditions. Secondary efficiencies in the range 0.24-0.76 have been achieved.

Developments In Evaporative Cooling Of Buildings In Maritime Climates, Ben Costelloe, Donal Finn

Reports

Concern with environmental emissions has focused attention on traditional forms of energy use in buildings, with a view to reducing and making more rational use of energy consumption. One area of concern is the traditional, refrigeration based, commercial air conditioning system, which has high levels of electrical power consumption in fans and refrigeration compressors. There is also concern among building owners and design teams, supported by the PROBE series of post occupancy studies, conducted by the CIBSE, that many buildings, with traditional forms of air conditioning, under perform in terms of occupant satisfaction, ease of operation and control, maintenance costs …