Author Archives: admin
Engaging Engineering and Architectural Students in the Integrated Design Process (IDP) for a Competition Entry Demonstration House – the Solar Decathlon
Since April of 2003, a group of students from Concordia University and Université de Montréal has been preparing their entry to the Second Solar Decathlon competition to be held in September 2005. Their goal is to design, build and operate … Continue reading
“In town without my car!”: a new urban soundscape
In order to promote a more sustainable mobility society, the French government initiated a few years ago a “Car free day” (In town without my car!). Since the year 2000 this initiative has become an overall European action. In the … Continue reading
Passive Downdraught Cooling: hybrid cooling in the Malta Stock Exchange
The use of cooling in buildings is continuing to increase in Europe. This is raising concern that it will undermine the European Community’s drive toward reducing CO2 emissions. To counter this trend, there is increasing interest in evaporative cooling in … Continue reading
Analyzing the microclimatic influence of urban canyon geometry with an open-air scale model
A novel approach is developed for modeling the influence of street canyon geometry on microclimatic conditions within the urban canopy. A physical scale-model of an urban roughness array was constructed in open-air conditions to enable the measurement of climatic parameters … Continue reading
Switchable Façade Technology in Environmental Design
The topic is focused on the conception of the building envelope considered not only as a protecting barrier against atmospheric agents, but rather as an open membrane, permeable, selective and in active interaction with the climatic external factors, so as … Continue reading
Assessing Environmental Comfort – Towards a systemic quantitative and qualitative approach
This paper presents the preliminary results of the first stage of a research grant from SSHRCC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) on the control of physical ambiences and the nature of internal-external transactions in a Nordic climate. … Continue reading
Building envelope design for natural ventilation
The aim of this paper is the architectural analysis of natural ventilation devices developed by architects. The technical solutions adopted are exposed through some examples of naturally ventilated buildings. The natural ventilation principles and design challenges are discussed. The necessity … Continue reading
Environmental comfort in self-constructed houses
Our overall intention was to analyze the environmental comfort (thermal, natural lighting, ventilation and sound levels) performance of self-constructed houses in Apucarana, in Santo André city, situated in the metropolitan area of São Paulo. Typical examples of housing were selected … Continue reading
An evolutionary model for sustainable design
This paper presents a new Generative Design System to be used by architects in early to intermediate stages of design, to help improving the environmental performance of buildings. Both thermal and lighting analysis are included in the system, together with … Continue reading
Morphological parameters for urban dispersion models
A method to calculate geometrical input parameters for urban dispersion models is presented. Two cases are considered according to the relative size of the pollutant plume compared to the building size. Applying image processing techniques to urban Digital Elevation Models … Continue reading