Category Archives: Conference Paper
Modelling thermal adaptation and thermal preferences in outdoor urban environments
Whilst research into indoor thermal comfort is well advances, the impact of outdoor thermal conditions has received less attention. The thermal conditions encountered in outdoor urban space are a major determinant of the patterns of usage of the space and … Continue reading
Comfortable and/or pleasant ambience : conflicting issues ?
We present here a theoretical study about the relationships between comfortable and pleasant ambiences. The notion of comfort is not sufficient for the study and design of ambience. Ambience is defined here as the way the environment affects a subject. … Continue reading
Daylighting quality through user preferences : Investigating libraries
This paper presents the findings of a research project investigating daylighting quality through its perceived effect on the everyday user of a space. The subjects participating in the experiments are asked to describe their perception of the daylit environment through … Continue reading
CO2 emission concerning daily activities in residences
It is important that the countermeasures to reduce CO2 emission during the housing usage phase be examined. In this study, the factors under various daily activities concerning the CO2 emission were simulated, in order to examine a more effective countermeasure. … Continue reading
A GIS framework for studying post-occupancy climate-related changes in residential neighbourhoods
A GIS-based methodology is discussed, which simplifies recording and analysis of post-occupancy changes in residential buildings. Each modification is considered as a unique record in a database, and has a string assigned to it in a multi-parametric matrix. Its position … Continue reading
Building in the climate of the New World… A cultural or environmental response?
The reciprocity between appearance, available technology and environmental context forms the subject matter of Rappaport’s famous ‘House Form and Culture’. In this essay the evolution of a particular seventeenth century building type – the English ‘hall-and-parlour’ house – in response … Continue reading
Environmentally sensitive design in practice
A new university campus in outback Australia is set to teach the world how to not only survive, but to sustain life in the future. Built to house the School of Environment and Information Sciences and the School of Business, … Continue reading
Street canyon geometry and microclimate : Designing for urban comfort under arid conditions
While urban design guidelines have been developed for responding to climate in various regions, these recommendations are often based more on intuition or sporadic observation than on an integrated microclimatic analysis of thermal comfort conditions. Quantitative studies on desert environments … Continue reading
The Oxford Photovoltaic House : Lessons for the future UK PV industry
The Oxford Photovoltaic House was built to help establish photovoltaics (PV) as a viable technology in the UK through the medium of a high profile demonstration project. To achieve this objective a 4kW peak PV array was built on a … Continue reading
The Bioclimatic Domestic Space Components : Variations of their Architectural Translations on the Periphery of the Mediterranean Sea
Each one of these ten mediterranean house sketches is a specific composition from the four following spatial elements: a heavy-opaque unit, a light transparent unit, a water element, and a fire element. The heavy-opaque space unit, shelter for the cold … Continue reading