Building Design Process Research Articles

The Impact of Glazing Types and Window-to-Wall Ratios on Energy Consumption in Semi-arid, Mediterranean and Arid Climates

A reduction in energy consumption and energy efficiency improvement in buildings have become one of the main objectives in national and international energy policies. In an optimization process, and in order to find the most influential parameters to achieve net zero energy, several ameliorations need to be made to residential buildings. In this paper, two measures are discussed; the effects of locally available glazing types and window-to-wall ratios, tested under three different Algerian climates; semi-arid, Mediterranean and arid-climate. For the purpose of calculating energy use intensity savings, optimal values and payback periods for each of the mentioned measures the building information modelling software Autodesk Revit® and the energy simulation plugin Sefaira have been used. According to the findings, double glazing with Argon has the greatest potential for lowering the energy use intensity, whereas the window-to-wall ratios has a significant effect on the energy consumption of buildings in the studied climates, and the optimal ratio for a given orientation varies according to the type of glazing used. Moreover, very high payback periods were found compared to other countries, and only a few studied variables could be achieved with profitability. This paper is helpful for professionals who are responsible for decision-making during the design process of energy-efficient residential buildings.

Applying life cycle assessment with minimal information to support early-stage material selection

Traditional life cycle assessment (LCA) is too data intensive and time consuming to be used during typical building design processes. Conducting an LCA during the building design process therefore requires simplifications and assumptions. Such “screening LCAs” are quicker and can be used with less data but introduce greater uncertainty. Unfortunately, uncertainty is not reflected in standard deterministic LCA calculations, which produce single-point values in LCA results. Thus, in this study, data quality scoring has been incorporated into a screening LCA to produce probabilistic predictions of environmental performance based on limited data. The approach has been applied during the design process of a bio-based wall panel designed for a circular economy. A combination of ecoinvent and material data sheets were used to analyse a wide range of novel bio-based insulation materials. The screening LCA analysed global warming potential and identified a short-list of promising materials that were then subjected to a detailed LCA for further consideration in the design. The method uses publicly available information and can be applied at material or building-element level. The method thus helps designers estimate environmental impacts without hindering the design process.

Conservation and Adaptation for Medieval Castles: The Case of Messner Mountain Museums

In international conservation documents, adaptation is considered an important conservation process for culturally important places. It is especially important when the cultural context changes, as is the case with medieval castles, many of which were altered or built for military and domestic use in the Middle Ages. Medieval castles which are no longer used for their initial functions, are mostly non-functional today, and non-functional buildings often disintegrate into nature and disappear in time. Therefore, maintaining their relevance and cultural significance depends on appropriate adaptation strategies. When adapting a historic building, it is essential to design for the current use and needs, referring to conservation principles. It is also important to blend cultural heritage consciousness with creativity, and this can be achieved by balancing conservation and design practices. Therefore, in addition to design parameters, characteristics of the existing building should be meticulously analysed, and design concepts should be predicated on sustaining the existing values and meanings while adding contemporary ones. It is the purpose of this research to discuss and contribute to the theory of adaptation regarding medieval castle conversions by analysing three related case studies from Northern Italy. The findings lead to the proposal of a diagram, the focus of which is on the conceptual parameters of the multi-dimensional theory of adaptive (re)use, to be used for the design process of historic buildings.

Building information modelling-based integrated design process for green building applied in O•PARK2 and potential contribution to carbon neutral construction

To achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality targets of mainland China and Hong Kong, carbon reduction in the building sector is a critical task due to its high contribution to total carbon emissions. Decarbonisation approaches in both operation and construction phases should be considered. A building information modelling (BIM)-based integrated design process (IDP) is introduced to connect the design, construction and operation as an entirety from the initial stage of a project to enhance the green building and decarbonisation design. Taking a real case of a Design-Build-Operate project, O•PARK2, this study investigates the benefits and problems in a BIM-based IDP in regard to green building and its potential impact on carbon neutrality during construction. A BIM-based IDP enables decision-making to be based on comprehensive and optimal information, which is well proved by the O•PARK2 project with the BEAM Plus being upgraded from Gold to Platinum. The carbon reduction potential during the construction phase is as high as 45%, which can only be actualised if decarbonisation specialists are involved from the planning phase. Although the BIM-based IDP possesses many unique advantages, the management of its long feedback loop and the complicated procedures should be optimised in the future.

Sensitivity analysis and optimization of PCM integrated buildings in a tropical savanna climate

Several researchers have reported the importance of early design stage decisions in the building design process. Integrating phase change material (PCM) in buildings is a feasible method for enhancing energy efficiency. However, the following issues have not been addressed yet. (a) What is the most effective combination of early design stage parameters that minimizes the energy consumption of PCM integrated residential buildings? (b) Can the various sensitivity analysis methods generate a similar ranking of early design stage parameters? (c) Can the same set of early design stage parameters be used for tropical savanna climates? (d) Are the optimal solutions economically and environmentally feasible? Hence, this research proposes a multi-stage sensitivity and optimization of the PCM incorporated buildings in tropical savanna climates by considering building layout, envelope thermal characteristics, and energy efficiency measures. For multi-stage sensitivity analysis, at the first stage, global sensitivity methods (Morris, standard rank regression coefficients, partial rank correlation coefficients) were used followed by the utilization of the local sensitivity method. An evolutionary algorithm was used to optimize the key early design stage parameters. Finally, the economic and environmental analysis was performed on optimal solutions. Results showed that all methods generated a different ranking of the importance of early design stage parameters. Due to optimization, the annual energy use decreased by about 18.2–42.7% in comparison to the base case. In addition, the optimal solutions are economically and environmentally pronounced. It is concluded that early design stage parameter selection is crucial in reducing building energy consumption.

A review of embodied life cycle assessment tools used to support the building design process

Buildings and construction have a significant effect on our natural environment and are major contributors towards global energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Understanding and improving the environmental performance of buildings is critical to reducing these effects. While there has been some success reducing the operational effects of buildings, the significance of embodied environmental effects is rising. Built environment professionals must be better equipped to understand and integrate these considerations into iterative decision-making processes. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a commonly used technique to quantify environmental effects across the life cycle of a building, however, it is not widely used by building designers. This is partially due to time constraints, the complexity of conducting detailed LCA, and the limited amount of building information available during early building design. The aim of this review is to identify the breadth of LCA tools available that support the building design process, with a focus on embodied environmental effects. A review of literature is conducted which identifies attributes and properties of these tools including: software attributes, relevance to design phases, features for building design, life cycle coverage, and data attributes. The review finds a lack of consistency between LCA tools, with varying levels of data transparency and completeness, and challenges for incorporating these tools into prevalent design workflows.

Rancangan Lansekap Gedung Kuliah E Kampus Institut Teknologi Kalimantan Sebagai Ruang Multi Fungsi

The presence of open spaces in the spatial order of the campus can encourage students to engage in outdoor activities aimed at improving their quality of life and academic performance. Providing an integrated, open campus space is the key to creating a unique, dynamic, and aesthetic campus. During development, Institut Teknologi Kalimantan (ITK) continues to develop the infrastructure to support all lecture events, one of which is an open space configuration for College Building E. The landscape design process for this college building is in progress. It consists of five steps consisting of (1) problem identification; (2) data collection; (3) data analysis; (4) formulation of concepts; and (5) Design. The landscape design concept of College Building E conceptually applies the principle of multifunctional space as seen in the design of public green open spaces that combine the functions of public and green spaces. The coexistence of public and green spaces creates harmony in the design of educational, recreational, interactive, aesthetic, and dynamic open spaces.

Introducing causal inference in the energy-efficient building design process

“What-if” questions are intuitively generated and commonly asked during the design process. Engineers and architects need to inherently conduct design decisions, progressing from one phase to another. They either use empirical domain experience, simulations, or data-driven methods to acquire consequential feedback. We take an example from an interdisciplinary domain of energy-efficient building design to argue that the current methods for decision support have limitations or deficiencies in four aspects: parametric independency identification, gaps in integrating knowledge-based and data-driven approaches, less explicit model interpretation, and ambiguous decision support boundaries. In this study, we first clarify the nature of dynamic experience in individuals and constant principal knowledge in design. Subsequently, we introduce causal inference into the domain. A four-step process is proposed to discover and analyze parametric dependencies in a mathematically rigorous and computationally efficient manner by identifying the causal diagram with interventions. The causal diagram provides a nexus for integrating domain knowledge with data-driven methods, providing interpretability and testability against the domain experience within the design space. Extracting causal structures from the data is close to the nature design reasoning process. As an illustration, we applied the properties of the proposed estimators through simulations. The paper concludes with a feasibility study demonstrating the proposed framework’s realization.

Wind-resistant structural optimization of irregular tall building using CFD and improved genetic algorithm for sustainable and cost-effective design

Tall buildings with irregular shapes and considerable heights are gaining popularity in creating the vertical cities around the world. They also considered one of the major energy consumers with little regards to sustainability. Tall building is wind-sensitive structure and shape plays major role in determining wind loads, which usually govern the design of its lateral resisting system. Thus, evaluating wind loads properly and designing an optimal lateral system accordingly are the main challenges attributed to the design process of irregular tall building. This paper presents a computational procedure for the optimal design of wind-resistant irregular tall building to minimize the total weight of structure within design requirements in single digital environment. That is achieved firstly by creating a digital system of computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis that is coupled with pressure-load translation (PLT) algorithm to evaluate the wind motions on irregular tall buildings and generate the design wind loads accordingly. Genetic Algorithm (GA) with enhance design constrains function of lateral displacements, inter-story drifts and top acceleration is then developed to perform structural optimization. A numerical example using 70-story twisting reinforced concrete building is implemented to verify the feasibility of the developed computational procedures. Steady and incompressible flow applied at (0°) angle of attack was implemented in the CFD model to simulate the wind flow on the studied building. Genetic algorithm with improved design constraints of static and dynamic design requirements was developed to optimize the structure effectively and efficiently. The numerical example demonstrates its effectiveness by achieving 35.71% reduction of concrete volume from the original lateral structural system design. This is also translated into a sustainability value by lessening the embedded carbon dioxide by 4,400 tons.

On the robustness of thermal comfort against uncertain future climate: A Bayesian bootstrap method

Climate change mitigation and adaptation warrants their synergetic consideration in the building design process, yet past decades have witnessed an unbalanced focus on the mitigation of energy and carbon. In redressing the imbalance, the major challenge lies in the accurate prediction of future building performance via building energy modelling, which is considerably hindered by uncertainties in future climate data. Robustness analysis is a promising technique to inform uncertainty-based decision-making, but its application to future thermal comfort has yet to be sufficiently explored in the built environment. From the perspective of domestic overheating, this paper represents an initial investigation into the implementation of the Bayesian bootstrap method, to quantitatively evaluate the robustness of thermal comfort against uncertain future climate. This is demonstrated using a case study of two typical post-retrofit dwellings in England, where the Bayesian bootstrap also enables the statistical comparison of their expected future overheating risk with climate uncertainty considered. The main findings reveal the magnitude of both overheating risk and its variability experienced during nocturnal occupancy in regulation-compliant dwellings, respectively comprising nearly 15 and 12 times greater than during daytime in extreme cases. Results also imply that adaptive ventilation is potentially the key measure to enhance the robustness of thermal comfort against climate uncertainty. Overall, the Bayesian bootstrap is shown to provide a systematically consistent approach to the robustness assessment of future thermal comfort, which can facilitate the comparability of design alternatives that is vital to the building design decision-making process integrating both mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Wellbeing as an emergent property of social practice

Wellbeing in buildings is often approached by practitioners and researchers as the aggregate result of individual interactions between building occupants and building features. This sum-of-the-parts approach, however, ignores the ways in which broader social (<em>i.e</em>. sense of ownership and belonging) and symbolic (<em>i.e</em>. what it means to be ‘well’ in a specific culture at a particular place and time) components of wellbeing influence occupant experience of the built environment. A social practice perspective on wellbeing in buildings is proposed that accounts for these elements. Beginning with discussions of how wellbeing has been assessed and the foundations of social practice theory, it is suggested that occupant wellbeing is emergent not just from individual interactions with building features but also from broader social and symbolic elements. <em><strong>Policy relevance</strong></em> A social practice perspective on wellbeing in buildings has implications for both the assessment of wellbeing and the role of wellbeing in the building design process. Integrating social and symbolic elements into measures of wellbeing pushes assessment beyond the typical focus on comfort and spatial experience (indoor environmental quality). These more nuanced assessments may in turn shape how wellbeing is addressed in building design, construction, and management.

Integrating the Principles of Lean Management into the Design Process of Green Tall Buildings

Integrating the Principles of Lean Management into the Design Process of Green Tall Buildings

VPL-based Code Compliance Checking for Building Envelope Design Using OTTV Calculation

Building Envelope plays a vital role in reducing thermal loads, minimizing energy consumption, and ensuring sustainability. The Overall Thermal Transfer Value (OTTV) is a recognized method to evaluate the thermal performance of buildings. Building Information Modelling (BIM) has added great value to the AEC industry as an efficient tool to facilitate the building design process. With the development of BIM, more properties and material characteristics are assigned to the project design and building model that are getting more complex. Meanwhile, performing OTTV assessment and checking compliance with the assigned values involving time-consuming calculations with the possibility of ambiguity. Hence, automation of the code compliance checking process has become on-demand within the BIM environment. The objective is to develop a Visual Programming Language (VPL)-based script for automating the OTTV rule-based code compliance checking process. The applied method is to integrate BIM, VPL, and OTTV requirements; and develop a visual script that is responsible for extracting parameters from the BIM model, performing OTTV calculation, comparing output with assigned standard values of OTTV aiming answering the research question whether automated code compliance checking process can contribute to code compliance facilitation effectively. The results indicate that integrating VPL into the code compliance checking process has promising signs in facilitating the compliance checking process, increasing the accuracy and reliability of outcomes.

PERANCANGAN PERPUSTAKAAN UMUM KOTA GORONTALO DENGAN PENDEKATAN SMART BUILDING

This research want to analize The design of the Gorontalo City Public Library using the Smart Building Approach is a building design process with the function of being an educational, informative, and recreational facility located on Jl.Achmad Nadjamudin, Kota Tengah District, Gorontalo City. The selection of Kota Tengah District as the location for this design was based on the function and designation of strategic areas in accordance with the designated functions of the area, one of which is the education area which is closely related to the provision of libraries, which have been regulated and stipulated in the Gorontalo City Spatial Planning. Based on the data obtained from the research results, the provision of library facilities is one of the important factors in advancing the world of education in Gorontalo City. Libraries provide a variety of information, reading, recreational and commercial areas whose use is more open to all people using the Smart Building approach. As the recommendation, it is need to use Smart Building as an approach to design with advances in science and technology, intended to create a library in Gorontalo City, with a Smart building appearance supported by modern technology applied to building elements, attractive, and provide convenience to users. It is displayed on building facades, landscapes, utility systems, security and telecommunications systems, structures and building materials. The library development is also a solution to improve the culture of reading and obtaining information.

Invigorating Health Strategy in an Integrated Design Process

Healthy buildings are gaining crucial significance in construction and one health setting for promoting occupants’ health. However, the traditional design process for healthy buildings presents limitations with no specific guidelines. In contrast, the integrated design process (IDP) has proven to be effective in realizing high-performance buildings. However, the IDP shortfall of not having robust health strategy (HS) capability is a concern of interest. Thus, we posit further advancement of IDP in the context of incorporating HS in the prevailing IDP guidelines with a sequential iterative procedure. Moreover, a conceptual framework aimed at invigorating the implementation of HS in all IDP stages is proposed. The strategies within IDP that would reinforce achieving healthy building by addressing building process implementation are highlighted. The (IDP + HS) iterative framework herein advanced is intended to aid neophyte and experienced building professionals to reflect about the process of achieving healthy building while optimizing IDP for one’s health invigoration in construction industry.

Stereotomic and Tectonic Architecture from Structural Point of View: Case of a Single 10-Story Perforated Shell Structure

This paper is part of a research on innovative structural systems techniques in tall buildings and starts from the collaboration between the Department of Scientific Research and the Department of Architecture and Engineering at Polis University. The objective of this paper is to emphasize the structural differences between tectonic and stereotomic architecture by analyzing the different structural behaviors of both languages. The initial hypothesis is that an interaction field can be found where these two languages can be combined to propose a design method for a preliminary design process. The methodology goes through the following steps: the first step, analysis and determination of tectonic and stereotomic modelling approach; the second step, analysis of a single 10 story perforated shell structure by changing the openings ratio from a structural point of view and the third step, interpretation of results stating these two different architectural and structural profiles are intertwined. The instruments used are presented by a multivariate visualization method, an easy-to-use and as a key concept for generating the perforated pattern of the shell structure. They describe a visual and interactive, performance informed tool-using software of Rhino Grasshopper, Karamba 3D plugin, indicating the designer's preferences and concluding with the structural control of the model build. It is expected that the results will introduce a generative design method for architecture grounded on the stereotomic and tectonic modelling approach that can contribute towards the integration of structural rationality into preliminary architectural design process of tall buildings.

BIM Utilization in Improving Energy Efficiency Performance on Architectural Design Process: Challenges and Opportunities

BIM utilization for energy simulation efficiency is increasing in Indonesia. BIM itself is one of the methods for carrying out building energy efficiency because it has dimensional features that can create collaborative work processes efficiently. This paper aims to describe BIM and building energy workflows in the design process and see the trend of BIM utilization in Indonesia, especially in the architectural design process. The methodology of this paper is a survey by online questionnaire for BIM stakeholders to make an overview of to what extent construction industry stakeholders have utilized BIM in Indonesia, especially in the design phase especially in building energy simulation. The BIM workflow that is integrated into building energy calculations can make the energy-oriented building design process. In addition, it can provide exciting and informative diagrams for the calculation of embodied energy will make it easier to understand the building energy by building construction stakeholders. In the final analysis of this paper, which is the hypothesis model of problem and solution of BIM utilization in Indonesia, there are 4 main problems and solutions according to the analysis of the questionnaire result: Flexibility and Collaboration, Technical Skill Problem and Training, BIM Management Data, and Low-Cost BIM. BIM utilization in Indonesia is still limited, especially in its use to analyze and mitigate building energy.

Strategies to improve building environmental and economic performance: an exploratory study on 37 residential building scenarios

PurposeWith a contribution of 39% to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, reducing the environmental impacts of buildings plays an undisputed role in achieving climate goals. Therefore, the development of projects with a low carbon footprint is of crucial importance. Although several active and passive solutions as well as design strategies have been developed, identifying critical levers to minimise GHG emissions and the cost of future building projects is still a problem faced every day by designers.MethodsMotivated by this knowledge gap in this study, we conducted a life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) of a residential building situated in Austria. To identify the critical levers for reducing impacts and cost, 37 scenarios with three different advanced energetic standards are created. The scenarios with the various standards are developed through the combination of different construction materials, insulation materials and technical building equipment. In the eco-efficiency assessment (LCA and LCCA), a reference study period of 50 years is assumed. The life cycle of the building scenarios was analysed according to the European standard EN-15978.ResultsResults show that improving the energetic standard does not yield an overall cost savings potential. The additional construction cost (23%) for energy efficiency measures, including thermal insulation and change of technical building equipment, is higher than the reduction potential in operating cost over 50 years. On the other hand, the improvement of energetic standards allows a reduction of the environmental impacts by 25%.ConclusionsTo ensure a cost-optimal environmental improvement of buildings, it is crucial to conduct an eco-efficiency assessment during the design process of energy-efficient buildings. This study shows how improving the energetic standard of buildings can reduce environmental impacts with slightly increased life cycle cost.

LCIA Parameters and the Role of BIM towards Sustainability: Regional and Temporal Trends

Building materials with a low environmental impact are critical to the sustainability of the built environment. The environmental impact of materials can be determined by a Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA), which constitutes multiple parameters such as the water used in a material’s life cycle. To use the LCIA approach for building material selection, its parameters need to be assigned different weights, which is the primary objective of this study. Building Information Modelling (BIM) can play an influential role when using LCIA during the building design process. With this consideration, we study the attention given to environmental sustainability in buildings and the responsiveness of BIM in this case. A multi-regional survey of 120 experts from academia and industry was conducted. The results show the relative importance of LCIA parameters and the focus of the building sector on environmental sustainability. The current and the future responsiveness of BIM towards environmental sustainability is also indicated. To promote the integration of LCIA in building design and performance assessment, the future role of BIM applications is explored. The results will contribute to research and practice in the sustainable built environment by helping select environment-friendly building materials.

Waste Management in a Sustainable Circular Economy as a Part of Design of Construction

The Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industries are the producers of the most significant waste stream in the European Union. Known EU initiatives propose to deal with the issue of construction and demolition waste (CDW) according to the principles of a circular economy: the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, and recycle). CDW is generated during the whole life cycle of construction. The lack of information about the quantity of CDW during the design phase of building needed for sustainable design of construction was identified as a research gap. The aim of our research is to quantify construction and demolition waste during the construction design phase in a circular economy. The proposed method is based on the generation rate calculation method. This paper describes the proposed methodology for quantifying selected types of construction waste: excavated soil, concrete, and masonry. This information is essential from the point of view of a sustainable circular economy. The main contributions of the paper were identified during the decision-making process of sustainable building design, during the audit of CDW management, and during building information modelling as a support tool for CDW management. As early as the construction design phase, there is the possibility of choosing technologies, construction processes, and materials that have a higher degree of circularity in the economy.