PLEA

There are now more than four million refugees living in camps around the world. The majority of such camps are within inhospitable environments, often with extreme climates. This paper focuses on the thermal conditions of shelters in the Azraq refugee camp (Jordan), subject to an arid climate with high temperatures during the hot season. Due to political and other sensitivities, whole-, or multi-year monitoring of occupied shelters—and hence the empirical determination of overheating—is difficult. Instead, internal conditions in the shelters were monitored for three weeks in summer and used to validate computer models of the accommodation. These models were then used to generate annual predictions of overheating assessed through overheating criteria based on thermal discomfort and physiological indicators of heat stress. Building on these results, the performance of alternative designs specifications or shelter operation strategies were investigated through parametric analysis. The results show maximum indoor temperatures over 45°C. Overheating thresholds were exceeded for more than 20% of the year and physiological indicators suggest the possibility of health-threatening conditions. The use of alternative designs and strategies reduced overheating to nearly 2% of the year, with a steep reduction of severe heat stress indicators.

The increasing complexity of modern architectural geometries emphasizes the need for more accurate simplified calculations of comfort analysis in architectural design. Such computations often require to solve complicated equations, among which the calculation of Mean Radiant Temperature (MRT) is notable. The goal of this paper is to propose a fast reliable technique, named Numerous Vectors (NV), to calculate MRT even in the presence of complex geometries. Considering the area, orientation, and distance of different radiant geometries, the process suggests an innovative method to find the view factor by projecting the surrounding surfaces on a unit sphere as the human body. Rather than separately computing the values of view factors for individual radiant surfaces, the method determines the proportion of the radiation from all surfaces by a single-step process. The NV method can also be used for the calculation of multiple parameters involved in MRT such as solar and atmospheric radiations. The proposed process is much faster than conventional methods available to calculate the view factors and the results are proved to be in a good agreement with analytical data.

Highly reflective and specular building envelopes have been widely adopted to help maximize energy performance of buildings and to achieve occupant thermal and visual comfort. This strategy has ensured these benefits inside the building envelope while making a significant and sometimes unintended impact outside the building envelope. Reflected sunlight from specular building envelopes can cause discomfort glare to people outside buildings. It is important to investigate exterior glare issues caused by specular material characteristics. This often parallels, but is distinct from, thermal issues resulting from radiant gain. Preliminary exterior glare scene documentations were performed in downtown Los Angeles to understand existing problems. Human subject study was performed in an outdoor research setting. High dynamic range (HDR) imaging was used to capture and evaluate different levels of scenes and to visualize glare sources in the field of view. Collected subjective evaluation data and captured glare scenes were statistically analyzed to prove the existence of exterior glare problems. Perceptible and disturbing glare levels were experienced by the subjects, and strong correlations were found between human visual discomfort and excessive sunlight reflections from specular building envelopes.

This paper tackles the environmental and social challenges that have emerged in the aftermath of the recent economic crisis. The acute recession that has dramatically struck Europe has had devastating consequences, not only for national economies but also for the population. In the Spanish case, its high dependence on an over stimulated construction sector led the country to a sudden recession. Defaults related to real state became commonplace and credit was halted. Without access to credit, most companies (including but not limited to real state) started to cease their activity. It had a double consequence: On the one hand, the number of evictions increased dramatically as households without regular income could not repay their mortgages. On the other hand, suburbs were filled with ‘ghost towns’ of unfinished buildings and empty states, which were abandoned by bankrupted developers.
The paper reports on a research that aims to provide a feasible housing alternative for crisis-affected families and young people who intend to emancipate in this harsh scenario. It is a short term plan based on the temporal colonization of unfinished buildings. The structures will be retrofitted with low cost and high performance solutions to create environmental quality within the boundaries of the existing frame. These interventions will also reactivate those deserted suburban enclaves where they have been erected thus protecting them from informal occupancy. Architectural solutions will qualify the urban environment while responding to urgent housing needs without compromising the legitimate rights of landowners.

Passive Town Kurobe Model is conceptualised to be a sustainable community project in Kurobe City, Japan with a population of about 42000, and home to several international industries. This housing complex with 36 units will be rented to the employees’ families and other citizens. The construction is scheduled to be completed in March 2016. As a possible model of Sustainable Community for the near future, the project aims social, economic, and environment solutions through the use of high natural potentials of the region, low-energy passive design techniques in the building and landscape towards reducing high energy consumption, symbiotic and responsive living with the social and natural environment milieu to activate the local community. “Advanced Passive Climate Charts” and other design tools are utilized to discuss design strategies with relevant details. Natural comfort is expected to be accounted for by utilizing the local climate potentials, such as: warmness, coolness according to the varied seasons while envisaging new lifestyles open to nature as well as the social environment. Energy consumption in the apartment is expected to be reduce through the use of passive design techniques, renewable bio-energy and solar panels, and active mechanical systems. The project is envisaged to be a possible local solution for global issues to respond to social-lifestyle changes and peoples’ needs, and supplementing economic necessities through reduce energy and water consumption, and a possible alternative solution to the nature-human dichotomy in some modern habitats milieu.

Recent Government funding in the UK has enabled 22 low carbon community organisations to work with the private and academic sector to understand and reduce energy consumption in domestic and non-domestic buildings. This has helped communities prepare for policy mechanisms such as the national Green Deal programme which aims to improve existing housing and non-domestic buildings by offering up-front loans to be repaid by energy savings. This paper presents the role and application of a
unique carbon mapping approach, which has enabled five of these low carbon communities to rapidly assess on a house-by-house level, the potential for improving the energy efficiency of their housing stock. DECoRuM, an award-winning GIS-based carbon counting model is used to measure, model, map and manage energy use and CO2 emission reductions from approximately 1,300 houses across five communities, displaying estimates of energy use and carbon emissions before and after community action. Incremental packages of energy saving measures and low carbon technologies are assessed for their impact on CO2 emissions to reveal further potential for large-scale refurbishment in the local area. Eligibility for the Green Deal is tested to show that on average 72 per cent of homes over all communities are suitable for finance. Through community events, results are visualised and fed back to the householders using colour-coded spatial maps along with thermal imaging. Findings from this study are relevant for policy-making and practitioners engaged in area-based carbon reductions.