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 …

Linear Waltz With Nature: A Self-Supporting Infrastructure In Nature, Shangkun Zhong

Architecture Senior Theses

This project aims to create a sustainable system that addresses waste management issues in urban areas by examining the functionality of recycling infrastructures and how they can be integrated. The system will absorb waste and convert it into renewable energy to support a field station in Tibet, where self-sustainability is critical, due to the remote location. Architects often demonstrate their understanding of sustainability through various means such as integration, passive/energy-saving, and natural architecture. This thesis argues that a sustainable system such as CopenHill, can exemplify the combination of green-manifested design and recycle content as a sustainable cycle that supports human-nature …

Offshore Speculation: Generative Ethics For Submerged Lands, Leigh Miller

Masters Theses

Where is the line between land and sea? As the United States begins to extend renewable energy infrastructures offshore, it will fundamentally blur the boundary between submerged and visible lands. In communities unfamiliar with landscapes of extraction and generation, the realities of this emerging industry will challenge notions of ownership, aesthetic values, and environmental ethics.

Offshore Speculation opens a dialogue between the discipline of landscape architecture and the spatial politics that support the nation’s transition away from fossil fuels. Reimagining the sea as a new urban territory on submerged land allows honest interrogation of the land-sea binary. Because landscape architects …

A Time For Triage, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

The world is desperately behind in the energy transformation needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Catching up requires a massive buildout of wind and solar power and associated infrastructure, but in the United States many impediments stand in the way. Among them, ironically enough, are environmental laws. Here I argue that we must accept difficult tradeoffs, sacrificing some of what we consider precious in order to avoid far worse impacts.

Zero Energy University Buildingsenergy Performance Evaluation Of Faculty Of Architectural Engineering In Tripoli's Branch, Osama Omar, Yathreb Sabsaby, Rehab Amro

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

One of the fastest growing trends in educational building design is Net Zero Energy buildings(ZEB). There are several buildings, either completed or under construction, that are committed to achieve this incredible level of energy efficiency [4]. The Fcaulty of Architecture building in BAU University is chosen as a case study to evaluate the energy performance in similar buildings in comparison with zero energy design strategies. The study used the findings from the analysis to identify and correct problem within the building. The aim of the research is to change the faculty building from an energy consumer to an energy producer, …

Our Energy Future, Fall/Winter 2007, Issue 15

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Renewable Energy, Fall/Winter 2011, Issue 23

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Gassed Out, Toban Shadlyn

Masters Theses

As the automobile industry continues to evolve with car sharing services, electric vehicles and soon autonomous driving, the infrastructure that supports our present-day car culture will become obsolete. While the current advancement focuses on the future of car design and accompanying policies, there is a need to consider the evolution of our infrastructure from an adaptive reuse standpoint.

Among the different kinds of automotive infrastructure, gas stations in particular, are the most environmentally problematic yet advantageous due to their abundance. The conversion of gas stations, however, is not a new notion. While these sites have been renovated into cafés, restaurants, …

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 …

Community Renewable Energy: The Potential For Energy Generation On Public Land In Cedar City, Utah, Betsy Byrne

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

As the world's population rises and becomes increasingly more urbanized, there is a greater demand on our resources. Current energy production practices are based on resources with finite supplies and are associated with environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas and particulate emissions, water resource use, and resource extraction. In contrast, renewable energy production is based on free, continually replenished sources with relatively few environmental impacts. Distributed renewable energy generation involves producing energy close to the point of consumption. The distributed generation model increases energy autonomy at the local level.

Distributed renewable energy generation is fairly common at point of use. …

A Thermo-Activated Wall For Load Reduction And Supplementary Cooling With Free To Low-Cost Thermal Water, Yuebin Yu, Fuxin Niu, Heinz-Axel Guo, Denchai Woradechjumroen

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

A building envelope serves as a thermal barrier and plays an important role in determining the amount of energy used to achieve a comfortable indoor environment. Conventionally, it is constructed and treated as a passive component in a building thermal energy system. In this article, a novel, mini-tube capillary-network embedded and thermal-water activated building envelope is proposed to turn the passive component into active, therefore broaden the direct utilization of low-grade thermal energy in buildings. With this proposed approach, low-grade thermal water at a medium temperature close to the ambient environment can be potentially utilized to either counterbalance the thermal …

Energy In The Ecopolis, Sara Bronin

Sara C. Bronin

Climate change, resource scarcity, and environmental degradation demand a paradigm shift in urban development. Currently, too many of our cities exacerbate these problems: they pollute, consume, and process resources in ways that negatively impact our natural world. Cities of the future must make nature their model, instituting circular metabolic processes that mimic, embrace, and enhance nature. In other words, a city must be a regenerative city or, as some say, an “ecopolis.” So, how to get there—to ecopolis—from here? In this Comment, I propose a partial answer by focusing on certain legal frameworks that must be reenvisioned to enable the …

Building A Better Office Of Sustainability: Promoting Sustainable Change And Educational Outreach At Wku, Andrew Salman

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This research documented the transformation of the house at 503 Regents Ave. in Bowling Green KY into a model home of sustainability by the WKU Office of Sustainability as a case study. Using the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Core Concepts, the benefits of weatherization (window upgrades, insulation, sealants) to the building, the addition of a solar energy array and utility grid intertie, and the transformation of the back yard into an edible landscape and community garden to mitigate stormwater flooding issues were assessed. Collaboration between the Office of Sustainability, students, university entities, and community members were encouraged …

Wind Power, Public Power: Evaluating Public Participation In New England Land-Based Wind Development, Gwen M. Miller

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Wind energy is a means of energy production without carbon emissions, facilitating regional and national energy security. While there are currently no offshore wind farms in the United States, there has been growing success in building land-based wind capacity. Within the wind industry, there is a call for a streamlined permitting process, as well as an objective evaluation of current stakeholder processes. Within city and regional planning, the stakeholder process and public participation in general have long been subject to research and discourse, as scholars and practitioners alike seek to identify and typify what exactly makes public participation robust or …

Sustainable Renovation In Kosova, Sadije Kelmendi

UBT International Conference

The built environment is one of the most obvious examples of the impact of human activity. Globally, buildings have a substantial impact on our energy use and the pollution of our environment. Buildings consume 35-40% of our primary energy. From that 35-40% of buildingrelated CO2 emissions, 29% of that could be cut by 2020 using existing technologies. Governments around the world are starting to define requirements for sustainable buildings. Targets are being set for reductions in energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. As Kosova faces big energy challenges in both low energy production and at the same time high energy …

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 …

Planning For Climate Change Mitigation And Adaptation In North Central Texas: A Roundtable Discussion, Jeff Howard, Kent Hurst

School of Urban and Public Affairs Publications

On July 16, 2009, the School of Urban and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Arlington hosted a daylong roundtable on how “climate leader” municipalities of North Central Texas—and urban planners in those communities—are responding to the looming challenge of climate change. The organizers invited the planning directors in selected North Central Texas communities to send staff members to participate. The targeted municipalities were those who are members of Cities for Climate Protection (ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability) or whose mayors have signed the Climate Protection Agreement (U.S. Conference of Mayors). Of the 17 such communities in the …

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 …