Downtown Buildings Research Articles

Challenges and opportunities in the energetic modernization of historic residential buildings in Budapest downtown

Challenges and opportunities in the energetic modernization of historic residential buildings in Budapest downtown

Examining the Effect of Structural Characteristics of Antakya Building Stock on the Damage Level After the Kahramanmaraş Earthquakes

ABSTRACT This study examines the structural characteristics and post-earthquake damage status of 2790 buildings in Antakya downtown after the Kahramanmaraş earthquakes.The study reveals how structural features, especially building typologies, construction year, number of floors, ground, and load-bearing systems, affect damage status of buildings.Damage levels resulting from the earthquake were documented, and the causes of these damages were identified.Comparisons and analyses clarify the possible vulnerability and risk status of these structures, based on studies conducted before the earthquake.This study emphasizes the importance of post-earthquake structural analyses, damage assessments, and supports future building projects and measures to be taken against earthquake risks.

On the energy impact of cool roofs in Dubai

Urban warming can significantly increase the energy demand for building cooling. As temperatures rise, buildings require additional energy for air conditioning, which can lead to higher electricity demand and increased greenhouse gas emissions. This can create a positive feedback loop, as increased energy demand leads to increased waste heat and further exacerbates the urban warming effect. To solve this issue, this study integrates high-resolution meteorological data from the Weather Research and Forecasting coupled with Single Layer Urban Canopy Model (WRF/SLUCM) into CitySim for the first time to evaluate the building energy demands at various building types in Dubai metropolis. Examining how cool materials reduced cooling loads was achievable utilizing modified albedo in Dubai's downtown buildings. An increase of urban albedo from 0.2 to 0.8 significantly lowers the urban heating effect, as well as the building cooling needs. The study shows that for albedo scenario 0.8, Low-rise residential buildings experienced cooling load reductions of about 13.1 kWh/m2 and 6 kWh/m2 for buildings without insulation and those with insulation, respectively, compared to the base case. Additionally, high-rise residential buildings saw cooling load reductions ranging from 7.7 kWh/m2 to 11.7 kWh/m2 for buildings without insulation and a cooling load reduction of 3.6 kWh/m2 to 5.4 kWh/m2 for insulated buildings. This study provides a tool for regulating the energy impact of cool roofs in different urban settings using energy simulation, which could help policymakers control the energy needs in subtropical desert urban environments.

The Meeting: Ideas for an Architecture of Interreligious Civic Collaboration

Interreligious engagement (IE) has been experienced and theorized mainly as the pursuit of a shared respectful awareness of the beliefs, practices, and social experiences of multiple religious communities. In rare instances, it has been possible to create architecture specifically to foster IE, as in the “tri-faith” Abrahamic campus in Omaha and the Berlin House of One. The theme is: Here we are, accepting that we share the world. Another form of IE that deserves to attract more interest is multireligious collaboration in civic work (addressing homelessness, urban blight, illiteracy, etc.). Some adherents of the intrinsically cosmopolitan “world” religions are actively cosmopolitan to the extent of seeking this engagement. The theme is: Let us share the work of the world, including sharing our religiously inflected processing of what the practical issues facing us are. There is a new initiative of this sort in my city, Jackson, Mississippi, named (from M. L. King) the “Beloved Community”. An architectural thought experiment may prove helpful in articulating the ideals for such an endeavor. What would be the physical desiderata for its headquarters? Let us imagine a new downtown building, The Meeting, dedicated to housing meetings where mixed religious groups learn about civic issues and coordinate efforts to address them. Full interreligious sharing of a space seems to require a neutral design lacking any definite religious inspiration. But there are nonsectarian ways to create an appreciably special, non-ordinary space, as in courtrooms and classrooms. Could a civic IE headquarters be special, expressive of practical optimism, and contain a sufficient religious allusion to qualify as a “next-to-sacred space” in which religious actors felt supported in the civic extension of their religious lives? I offer suggestions for discussion, including (1) a pavilion-style building suggestive of being set up for a special purpose—not soaringly grandiose but with a vertical feature such as a central roof lantern; (2) at least one major porch, with benches and tables; (3) an outside water fountain with public water supply (a historical allusion to the Islamic sabil); (4) inside, right-sized meeting rooms around the glass-walled periphery; (5) a big “living room” lounge in the center, usable for larger meetings, with access to a kitchen, and with a big project board for tracking work completed and work in hand next to a large map of the city; (6) a moderate descent of several steps into each meeting room so that there is a feeling of commitment in attending a meeting and a sense of challenge in going forth from one; (7) otherwise a main floor levelness and openness facilitating movement in and out, as in a train station; and (8) upstairs small offices for religious and other qualifying organizations. Answering the aesthetic and practical questions these suggestions raise takes us into imagining civic IE more concretely.

On the cooling energy impacts of combined urban heat mitigation strategies in subtropical urban building environment

Regional climate change leads to more extreme urban heat in desert cities. This affects the building's performance negatively through an increase in cooling energy consumption. To our knowledge, this is the first study investigating the impacts of implementing combined urban heat mitigation strategies of cool materials and increased vegetation on the cooling load demands of 40-various types of buildings in Dubai downtown. Four urban heat mitigation scenarios have been conducted in combination with a base case scenario to examine the effectiveness of the combined strategies in reducing the cooling load demand by using the climatic data from weather research and forecasting model coupled with single layer urban canopy model (WRF/SLUCM) in CitySim. Results revealed that for non-insulated buildings there was an estimated 17.2% to 36.4% reduction in cooling energy demand whereas insulated buildings have an average reduction in energy demand ranging between 15.5% and 29.1%. This reduction in cooling energy consumption is higher when compared with other mitigation techniques like additional urban vegetation and modified cool materials.

Application of inclined big‐diameter jet grouting for urban tunnel construction in Vietnam

AbstractUrban tunnel construction is often performed in congested areas with many buildings and historical structures nearby. With respect to developing countries, such as Vietnam, the lack of as‐built drawings of existing buildings is a big challenge for urban tunnel development. There are a lot of private buildings in downtown are low rise, with many kinds of shallow foundations (from bamboo bar, brick mat, lean concrete mat, pre‐casted concrete piles…) that add to the challenge of finding correct data. Consequently, one must find suitable and reasonable technology for the soil strengthening works in order to prevent the harmful impacts to the third ‐party properties and the tunnel structure itself. This paper introduces the inclined big‐diameter jet‐grouted column (iBDJ) technique that was recently applied with success in Hanoi Metro Line No3 project in Vietnam. This technique for protecting historical sensitive buildings that are in fuzzy of foundation information can be extended to urban tunnel projects in Vietnam and other countries which have similar conditions.

Impact of building types and CHP plants on air quality (2019–2021) in central-eastern European monocentric agglomeration

The quality of city air is influenced by many factors, including the density of buildings, the roughness of the terrain, the presence of street canyons, the heat sources in buildings, the types of industry, the topography, and meteorological conditions. Official air quality monitoring systems measure a very limited number of points, making local analysis impossible without the use of mathematical modeling programs. Here, we present an analysis of local air quality in an urban agglomeration. Data were collected over three years (2019, 2020, 2021), using commercial sensors located throughout the area of investigation. Dense downtown buildings equipped with individual heat sources were not found to have any impact on local air quality. The local municipal combined heat and power (CHP) plants contributed <1 ‰ of the measured concentration of particulate matter. Land height and the density of single-family housing were found to significantly affect air quality. We also took into account the influence of weather conditions, wind speed, and wind direction on the concentrations of particulate matter. High concentrations of particulate matter occurred only during heating periods when wind speeds were moderate. Wind direction did not have a direct impact on air quality, despite the expected benefits of ventilation through air corridors.

Asset-Based, Sustainable Local Economic Development: Using Community Participation to Improve Quality of Life Across Rural, Small-Town, and Urban Communities

We analyze survey data from 5,487 residents of 85 Texas communities, including rural communities, small towns, medium-sized cities, and the five largest urban centers, to model the influence of the degree of urbanity and rurality of a community as well as residents’ social position, values, and their satisfaction with local assets. The paper’s central argument is that a wide range of factors impact how community members think about their needs and thus should be considered in any community development process. This human-centered approach looks at how community specific factors impact economic and quality-of-life development project preferences in support of adapting community development decision-making processes according to the context of each community. For the sake of parsimony, this paper presents results for three community development project concepts: (1) renovating some downtown buildings as mixed-use facilities with retail shops and apartments, (2) opening a community health center, and (3) deploying gigabit high-speed fiber broadband internet in the downtown area. Our findings specifically highlight areas where participatory processes can be introduced to guide further interactions between experts and community members to (1) identify groups in the community to bring into the process who may be most impacted by the choice of one intervention over another, and (2) target areas where further community discussion and deliberation is necessary around which community dialogues (round tables, town halls, workshops, etc.) could be facilitated.

Research of Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Production and GIS Integration Based on 3D Panorama

3D panorama technology is a kind of virtual reality technology based on image creation, which is used real photos to show the scene to achieve the effect of immersive virtual roaming, and improve the interactivity between the network platform with the user. Panoramic images, UAV remote sensing and GIS technology is the application and development of new technology of surveying and mapping industry, but apply combination is rarely studied. In this paper, based on rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) fixed-point hover took photos of different angles using PTGui software to create panorama images stitching, optimization, software reuse Pano2VR making 3D roaming figure, and compared with Supermap GIS integration. Based on a downtown building community will be released on GIS 3D roaming figure, you can see, after the integration of 3 d panorama with two-dimensional GIS geospatial information, also can see the area the real scene. The surveying and mapping, tourism and other industries to provide a new technical method.

Damage classification of residential buildings in historical downtown after the ML5.5 earthquake in Zagreb, Croatia in 2020

A severe earthquake hit Zagreb on the March 22, 2020 (magnitude ML = 5.5, with an epicenter 7 km north of the city center). During the COVID-19 lockdown, the event occurred and caused significant damage to the built environment and enormous disruption in everyday life. Brief facts about the Zagreb earthquake, the typology of buildings in the city, and the data collection after the quake itself are described. The paper focuses on post-earthquake assessment, damage classification, and failure patterns of residential buildings in Zagreb's old historical town, where masonry structures prevail. The earthquake critically damaged buildings that are important architectural achievements and ruptured Zagreb's historically recognizable city center. Furthermore, the data collected in the rapid post-earthquake assessment were analyzed and discussed. Graphical representations of damages are detailed and accompanied by photographs. This earthquake exposed Croatian building stock's vulnerability that should be mitigated as efficiently as possible in the coming years.

Research on Wind Environment Simulation of Commercial District Based on Phoenics—Taking Shanghai Central Building Group as an Example

As one of the central cities of my country's economic construction integration, Shanghai has continuously emerged with high-rise buildings under the trend of a threedimensional urban process. At the same time, the urban environment has become a problem that cannot be ignored, so it is necessary to conduct in-depth research on the wind environment of the building complex. Aiming at the wind environment problems in the city, this paper takes Shanghai’s central business district as an example, uses the software Phoenics to simulate the wind environment of the downtown building group, analyzes the types and functions of the business district building group, and aims at the existing wind environment propose solutions to the problems and provide reference theoretical basis and optimization basis for the formulation of relevant planning and design standards for the central area.

Redefinition of prefabricated large panel building systems - face lifting or disruptive revolution

The notion of “a large panel system (LPS)” means a building system from prefabricated structural elements, concrete slabs, used for the construction of blocks of flats and other buildings. Despite its simple definition, the name evolved over time into an urban, architectural and sociological phenomenon of massive impact changing the character of many European cities for good. It is estimated that nowadays in Europe (excluding the countries of the former Soviet Union) around 41 million inhabitants live in housing estates built from prefabricated panels. The presented elaboration aims to determine a real scale of this issue and provoke a discussion on the basis of undertaken actions - the discussion about the possibilities of stopping the destructive spatial and social processes affecting such areas. On the basis of the above-discussed architectural, urban planning, sociological and technical aspects of the large panel system housing estates and their juxtaposition with competitive contemporary housing estates, an attempt can be made to compare the negative and positive characteristics of these areas. A division into three groups is proposed: 1. Spatial and functional parameters in urban planning, 2. Spatial and functional parameters in architecture, 3. Technical and aesthetic parameters. However, the above-described terms mainly function on the grounds of the downtown (city-centre) building development. Therefore, only by the reference to the revitalization of housing estates do we understand specific areas in degraded housing complexes. Finally, the undertaking of the revitalization actions in the context of large housing developments made with industrial technologies is called ‘the humanization of housing estates’. This term refers to a whole range of works, beginning from the survey of the technical condition, through consultations with the local community, to the selection of solutions in the field of architecture, economics or ecology. On the contrary to the typical modernization, humanization focuses its activities also on the analysis of the collective addressee, their needs and expectations. Humanization of huge housing complexes is coupled with the strive for sustainable development of cities, which has recently become a strategic term in the economies of all developing European countries.

Our Town, by David Hyatt Crowe

Our Town, by David Hyatt Crowe

Analysis of indoor human thermal comfort in Pelotas municipality, extreme southern Brazil.

The indoor human thermal comfort (HTC) was investigated in residences located in the Pelotas City, southern Brazil, by the effective temperature index (ETI). In this study, temperature and relative humidity were measured inside 429 houses, located in different regions of Pelotas city, from January 11 to August 27, 2019. Samples were obtained using HOBO data loggers, indoor sensors, installed in different regions of the municipality, in the context of a cohort study of children between 2 and 4years old and their respective mothers, led by Epidemiological Research Center of the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPEL). In general, all regions had average hourly values of effective temperature index above the comfort zone in summer and below the comfort zone in the winter. In terms of spatial variability, the indoor HTC was dependent on environmental factors such as lake breeze and indoor behavior factors, such as the use of air conditioning system in the downtown buildings.

Lakótelepek esztétikai értékelésének kísérlete szegedi mintaterületek alapján

The aesthetics of landscapes and the environment has not received considerable research attention. The main reason for this is that aesthetic evaluation contains too many subjective elements, which is not always compatible with the cold rationalism of researchers. Despite this, researchers regularly comment on the aesthetics of urban environments. This is not accidental. There is a connection between the aesthetics of phenomena and the decision-making with regard to them. The aesthetic appearance of an area affects millions of decisions regarding investments, tourism destinations, or the choice of dwelling-place. In Hungary, around one third of the urban population is living in housing estates; this environment is an everyday reality for most of the urban population. The housing estates were built during the communist era and received major criticism almost instantly in both sociology and architecture. In recent decades both the Hungarian state and the local government of Szeged have made significant investments aimed at increasing the quality of the housing estates’ environment. For determining the aesthetics of housing areas and their environment, we improved our earlier- developed method, which was used for evaluating single downtown buildings. The improved method was tested in three different sample housing areas. For the evaluation of architecturally homogeneous, newly-constructed or refurbished buildings, we have introduced the concept of the visual unit, which incorporates multiple buildings and their surroundings. This solution speeds up the evaluation process, and it can also be used to score individual buildings, if necessary. We also examined visual conflicts which affect the aesthetics of the area and can reduce the value of the visual condition. The key result of our research is the thematic mapping of three categories, including the aesthetically valuable, and therefore attractive areas, which can be distinguished from the aesthetically problematic, and therefore repulsive areas, and from the areas which can be (and should be) improved aesthetically.

Seismic performance and fragility curves of historical residential buildings in Lisbon downtown affected by settlements

The construction of underground structures in Lisbon’s downtown, alongside with the fluctuation of the ground water level, generates settlement-induced damages to old heritage Pombalino masonry buildings. Assessing the potential damage caused by soil settlements to masonry structures is essential for adequate evaluation of their seismic performance and the definition of retrofit solutions. The seismic assessment procedures need to take into account the settlement induced damage and the non-linear behaviour of the masonry materials. This paper seizes a rare opportunity to join, in the same analysis, real settlement profiles imposed to well-characterized historical building typology, known as Pombalino, with the evaluation of their seismic performance simulated with advanced numerical models. Lisbon’s downtown settlements were measured for seven years. From these settlement measures, two settlements’ profiles and two settlements’ rate were identified. This paper presents the results of a study developed on a representative Pombalino building where these settlement profiles were applied to assess their impact on the initial damage and on the seismic performance of the building. The expected level of damage for a given ground motion intensity was estimated through the employment of numerical modelling and nonlinear static analysis, which has shown that damages induced by settlements can reduce significantly the global seismic performance of the building. The level of damage of the building at a global level and local level was studied. For the latter, the damage on structural elements is defined by the mean of the drift parameter, while for the former, the damages levels are defined directly in the pushover curve. This study assessed quantitatively the effect of the differential settlement on the seismic performance of Pombalino buildings and their fragility curves. The results showed the seismic action intensity needed to reach the collapse of the structure is roughly half for longitudinal configuration with the curved profile and nearly 1/5 for transversal shape with the linear profile, when compared to the building without differential settlements.

Influence of Underpinning Pile Drilling Construction on the Bearing Behavior of Existing Loaded Foundation Piles: Case Study

The mechanism of drilling borehole and its influence on the bearing behavior of existing foundation piles are unclear, hindering the application of excavation techniques. This paper proposes a new excavation scheme for high‐rise buildings in downtown and develops theoretical formulas to calculate the skin friction and end resistance of existing foundation piles affected by adjacent borehole drilling for installing underpinning piles. These underpinning piles are installed and connected with the existing pile by the head cap before excavation. In a case study, the parameter analysis was then performed to understand the effect of underpinning construction on the bearing behavior of existing foundation piles in terms of skin friction and end resistance. The results show that borehole diameter, depth of drilling borehole, distance between the existing foundation pile and drilling borehole, and number of boreholes have a negligible influence on the end resistance of existing foundation piles. The effect of drilling parameters on the skin friction of existing foundation pile, as well as the influence extent, varies for different parameters. The depth of drilling borehole and the number of boreholes have significant influence and thus should be considered in real engineering design while the borehole diameter and the pile‐pile distance have a negligible effect. The proposed new excavation technique could be potentially adopted for real engineering design of underneath excavation projects for high‐rise buildings in downtown.

Energetic retrofit of historical downtown buildings: Cost effectiveness and financing options

Energetic retrofit of historical downtown buildings: Cost effectiveness and financing options

Comparison of TanDEM-X DEM with LiDAR Data for Accuracy Assessment in a Coastal Urban Area

The TanDEM-X (TDX) mission launched by the German Aerospace Center delivers unprecedented global coverage of a high-quality digital elevation model (DEM) with a pixel spacing of 12 m. To examine the relationships of terrain, vegetation, and building elevations with hydrologic, geologic, geomorphologic, or ecologic factors, quantification of TDX DEM errors at a local scale is necessary. We estimated the errors of TDX data for open ground, forested, and built areas in a coastal urban environment by comparing the TDX DEM with LiDAR data for the same areas, using a series of error measures including root mean square error (RMSE) and absolute deviation at the 90% quantile (LE90). RMSE and LE90 values were 0.49 m and 0.79 m, respectively, for open ground. These values, which are much lower than the 10 m LE90 specified for the TDX DEM, highlight the promise of TDX DEM data for mapping hydrologic and geomorphic features in coastal areas. The RMSE/LE90 values for mangrove forest, tropical hardwood hammock forest, pine forest, dense residential, sparse residential, and downtown areas were 1.15/1.75, 2.28/3.37, 3.16/5.00, 1.89/2.90, 2.62/4.29 and 35.70/51.67 m, respectively. Regression analysis indicated that variation in canopy height of densely forested mangrove and hardwood hammock was well represented by the TDX DEM. Thus, TDX DEM data can be used to estimate tree height in densely vegetated forest on nearly flat topography next to the shoreline. TDX DEM errors for pine forest and residential areas were larger because of multiple reflection and shadow effects. Furthermore, the TDX DEM failed to capture the many high-rise buildings in downtown, resulting in the lowest accuracy among the different land cover types. Therefore, caution should be exercised in using TDX DEM data to reconstruct building models in a highly developed metropolitan area with many tall buildings separated by narrow open spaces.

Abu Dhabi’s Downtown Area, An Examination of Modernist Applications of the international style; Superblocks in a Modern Arab City, Improving Visibility and Social Space

Currently Abu Dhabi is expanding along its shorefronts and urban Islands creating many iconic buildings and social spaces, however, the downtown area is in need of regeneration. The city centre remains popular for a multi-cultural community because it was shaped by the modernist/International style and abstract Arab ornaments namely in the form of screens on the facades that attempted to fit within the climatic context of a desert city. The ‘modernist’ designs of the downtown buildings reflect practicality and pragmatism supported by Abu Dhabi’s grid street pattern that created rectangular land plots on which high-rise buildings were constructed-known today as downtown ‘Superblocks’. Abu Dhabi’s downtown architecture reflect the ideas of Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and other influential theoreticians of the International Style, the architects invited to participate in creating a modern Arab City in the 1980’s did not attempt to create a post-modernist pastiche of a Arab/Islamic vernacular expression, in contrast facades of the concrete high-rise buildings reflect attempts to deal with the hot humid environment of the Gulf. This research examines means of regeneration of Abu Dhabi’s downtown area, through the study of modernist buildings and the spaces between the superblocks. The area of study is the zone between Zayed the 1st street and Hamadan Street in the downtown area. We study selected buildings in downtown Abu Dhabi and offer recommendations for improving the social experience and liveability of in-between spaces, especially in the large asphalt parking lots created by the superblocks.