Floor Of Building Research Articles

Correlation between cooling effect of green space and surrounding urban spatial form: Evidence from 36 urban green spaces

The deterioration of the urban thermal environment has attracted increasing attention from scholars all over the world. A large number of studies show that green space in cities can alleviate the heat island effect. Taking the urban spatial characteristics around 36 green spaces in Xi'an as the main research object, this study explores the impact of urban spatial indicators such as building density (BD) and building floor area ratio (BFR) on the cooling effect of green spaces. Results show the significant correlation between BD and BFR around the green space and the cooling effect of green space. Among these indicators, when the BD is between 0.25 and 0.3, the green space can reach the maximum temperature drop range. When the BFR is between 2.5 and 3.0, the green space can achieve the best cooling effect. In addition, the relative position between the surrounding area and green space affects the cooling effect of the green space, which has the most obvious cooling effect when it is located on the north side.

Digging deep: design and construction of The Londoner hotel

Located in the heart of London's West End, The Londoner is a major new hotel on the world-renowned Leicester Square. The development is situated on a constrained site, bounded on all sides by roads. Planning restrictions limited the height of the building, leading to the development having one of the deepest habitable-grade basements in the world. The basement extends to over 30m deep, with six levels, meaning nearly half of the building's floor area is located below ground. This article provides an overview of the key design and construction considerations associated with building such a deep basement within the heart of London.

The Investigation of Natural Light Level and Distribution Based on Opening Orientation (Case Studies: Laboratory in Educational Building)

This research investigates the level and distribution of natural lighting based on the orientation of the openings in the laboratory room in the educational building at a university in Depok, West Java, Indonesia. The building was built using a green building approach. This building has several functions, two of which are the Basic Chemistry Lab and Biomedical Lab, which are located on the 8th floor of the educational building. This study addresses the questions, which laboratory room has the highest level of natural light in terms of the orientation of its openings? How is the distribution of natural lighting in these two laboratory rooms? On-site measurement was conducted to determine the natural light levels in laboratory rooms and building performance simulation software was used to investigate the distribution of natural lighting throughout the room. The results show that the level of natural lighting in the Basic Chemistry Lab (openings on the north side) and in the Biomedical Lab (openings on the south side) is similar, depends on the time and the sun position. The distribution of natural lighting in both laboratory rooms is not evenly distributed. To meet lighting needs, it is therefore the use of the distribution of natural light in the two rooms that needs to be adjusted.

Missing and Restoring Meaning

Missing and Restoring Meaning

A Deep Learning Approach toward Energy-Effective Residential Building Floor Plan Generation

The ability of deep learning has been tested to learn graphical features for building-plan generation. However, whether the deeper space allocation strategies can be obtained and thus reduce energy consumption has still not been investigated. In the present study, we aimed to train a neural network by employing a characterized sample set to generate a residential building floor plan (RBFP) for achieving energy reduction effects. The network is based on Pix2Pix, including two sub-models: functional segmentation layout (FSL) generation and building floor plan (BFP) generation. To better characterize the energy efficiency, 98 screened floor plans of Solar Decathlon (SD) entries were labeled as the sample set. The data augmentation method was adopted to improve the performance of the FSL sub-model after the preliminary testing. Three existing residential buildings were used as cases to observe whether the network-generated RBFP gained the effect of decreasing energy consumption with decent space allocation. The results showed that, under the same simulation settings and building exterior profile (BEP) conditions, the function arrangement of the generated scheme was more reasonable compared to the original scheme in each case. The annual total energy consumption was reduced by 13.38%, 12.74%, and 7.47%, respectively. In conclusion, trained by the sample set that characterizes energy efficiency, the RBFP generation network has a positive effect in both optimizing the space allocation and reducing energy consumption. The implemented data augmentation method can significantly improve the network’s training results with a small sample size.

Yığma Tarzda İnşa Edilecek Yapılarda Sonlu Elemanlar Metodu İle Hacim ve Yük Analizleri Üzerine Bir İnceleme

If it is desired to create a building model that is suitable to be designed according to the situation of the land in the zoning plans, whether it is normal or in accordance with the historical urban texture, some feasibility studies are definitely needed. Especially in the restoration work of a historical building in accordance with the old texture or in the construction of a 2- or 3-storey building such as H = 6.50 meters in vineyard or garden areas, the ground and upper floor are stone, masonry construction projects, by making a modelling with the finite element method in the calculations of the structure. In the volumetric sense, load combinations such as dead load, live load, soil load, water load are calculated. Wall analysis are made on the stone foundation on the ground and upper floors of the masonry building. Finite element method was applied in the study. Finite elements are creating the modelling of a structure by creating connection and nodal points. With this method, especially the SAP program is used. In our study, the analysis results about the necessity of all load combinations and how the wall loads of the stone foundation on the ground will be minimum in a building to be built in a masonry style were examined.

FIELD STUDIES OF THE SECOND FLOOR OF THE FORMER GRAND HOTEL BUILDING, 5 F. SKORINA AVENUE, POLOTSK

The article provides the results of a full-scale study of the second floor of the former Grand Hotel Building. The probing of the walls revealed a number of reconstructions of the building at different times and made it possible to clarify its original layout. The most extensive reconstructions of the building took place in 1874, 1912 and 1971, which led to the complete loss of all elements of its original interiors.
 
 During the study of the masonry of the existing building, a fragment of the wall of an XVIIIth century building was found as part of the studied floor, about which there is no information. The outlines of the brick building in the western part of the object we are studying are known only from the plans of Polotsk at the end of the XVIIIth century, but its purpose and type of architecture are not indicated. During the work, a number of architectural elements of the eastern facade of this building were cleared – the remnants of windows and cornices. It was found that in the middle of the XIXth century during the construction process in the eastern part of the "Grand Hotel" at the level of the second floor, it was connected with the building of the XVIIIth century that we have identified. By that time, it had already been rebuilt through two arched openings. This indicated that both buildings had the same owner for some time, but soon they were divided and completely isolated from each other.
 
 The buildings were connected again only after 1912 by arranging a new passage and using vaults on rails as ceilings for the entrance and toilets.

Connectivity dan Integrity dalam Space Syntax pada Bangunan Sekolah Al-Biruni Cerdas Mulia Bandung

Learning activities not only use a single classroom however classrooms, laboratories, libraries, etc. Therefore, the relationship between spaces in the school building needs to be concern so that communication and interaction between students and teachers can be conducted smoothly. The research tended to verify the connectivity and integrity of space syntax in the Al-Biruni Cerdas Mulia school building located in the Bumi Panyileukan Complex, Bandung, West Java. Two different levels of education degree were conducted in the building by sharing the room facilities. The analysis method used the depthmapX v.055 software to see the connectivity and the calculation of integrity values in the forms of total depth, average depth, and relative asymmetry. Testing the program and calculating the values resulted in 21 effective rooms on the first floor and 11 ineffective rooms on the second floor of the school building. Through the theory of syntax space, the problems regarding the spatial arrangement, layout, and circulation in buildings could be resolved, and communication and interaction between students and teachers could be more effective.

All-Round Control of High-Rise Buildings by Construction Organization Design Based on Distributed Control System

The construction of high-rise buildings usually involves many problems. With the increasing population and demand for tall buildings, researchers have also proposed different design approaches for various aspects of tall buildings. The design of traditional construction organization is difficult to cover all systems of high-rise buildings comprehensively and efficiently. Among the high-rise buildings involved, the first important is safety, followed by energy conservation. The high floor and complex structure of high-rise buildings bring hidden dangers to safety, and the large volume brings a burden to energy conservation. In this paper, in order to solve the problems that the system is difficult to fully cover in high-rise buildings and the design of consumables and energy materials, the method of distributed system is adopted. The main aspects of high-rise buildings are studied in an all-round way, and a distributed system model is first constructed in this paper. Then, the lighting, air conditioning, and fire protection systems of high-rise buildings are correspondingly formed under this system. Through the simulation experiment of the B4 building in the business district, it is concluded that the average luminous flux of lighting under the distributed system of this paper is 11385 lm, saving more than 60% of energy. The error of the air-conditioning system is less than 0.2°C, and the energy consumption is saved by 10%. The fire detection window length of the fire protection system exceeds 0.15, which can detect the fire sensitively. In addition, the evacuation pressure of personnel is reduced by more than 20% in emergency situations. The results show that the system establishment of high-rise buildings under the distributed method in this paper can effectively improve the efficiency, save energy consumption, and reduce the pressure of resource utilization. The design of this paper unifies the overall and local control objectives, which can fully meet the needs of comfort and convenience.

Street mapping, object detection and traffic load assessment from SVIs and field data using YOLOv3, machine learning and GIS

Street View Imageries (SVIs) facilitates street mapping, extraction and examination of elements from human’s perspective to aid for navigation and better understanding the real time loads on streets. We have selected an unplanned, densely populated residential place with 5 to 6 floor buildings in Batla House, New Delhi where street-level mapping and object detection using Google Street View Application (GSVA) is of high significance. We mapped 82 streets, spanning 14.2 km, and published the videos on GSVA. The objects were detected and classified with an accuracy of 94.2% and 91.4% respectively by YOLOv3 predefined model through ARC-GIS API for Python from the series of images. Our analysis show satisfactory association of human (R2 = 0.77), motor bike (R2 = 0.45) and cars/auto rickshaw (R2 = 0.58) with street width during afternoon hour. The SVIs and real-time objects detection using ML, GIS and field-assisted data combinatorial approach is more feasible for streetscape in unplanned settlements.

The characteristics of particulate matter during an air pollution process revealed by joint observation of multiple equipments

During a particle pollution in Hefei, Anhui Province from November 25 to December 9, 2018, we used a set of particle monitoring devices with different principles installed on the top floor of a 5-story experimental building to observe the mass concentration, particle diameter distribution and chemical composition. The results show that this pollution process can be divided into three stages: accumulation, outbreak and dissipation. At the beginning of pollution outbreak, it can be observed through the lidar that particulate matter first appears in the upper part of the boundary layer, and then accumulates downward and develops into ground pollution. During the pollution outbreak, particulate matter with an equivalent diameter of 0.8–1.6 μm increases significantly, with an average increase of more than 50%. In the particle size spectrum, the full width at half maximum also increases, and the particle diameter at the peak is about 0.76 μm. Furthermore, the change in particle size over time shows that the number concentration of particles with smaller size grows before those with larger size. By identifying and comparing characteristic ions, we found that the increase in the number of sulfate particles and the increase of their size correspond well to the outbreak of pollution, and the rapid decline in the fraction of sulfate corresponds well to the dissipation of pollution too. Sulfate is the most sensitive factor in the pollution process. The EC is the main component throughout the pollution process, but EC responds more slowly to pollution changes than sulfate, it is important but less sensitive.

Experimental and numerical modal analysis of a cross laminated timber floor system in different construction states

This paper addresses the vibration characteristics of a cross laminated timber (CLT) floor in a residential building during three construction states. Experimental modal analyses are carried out on the blank CLT slab, on the slab with added drywall ceiling, and on the slab with drywall ceiling and added floating screed. A reliable numerical model of the system is created with the means of a finite element model updating procedure. This model shows that some experimentally determined modes can be attributed to the dynamic interaction with the shaker used for excitation during the tests. In the finite element model, this effect can subsequently be eliminated. Based on the validated numerical model, the impact of various parameters of the floor construction on the low-frequency footfall sound insulation is investigated.

Sensitivity of modeled residential fine particulate matter exposure to select building and source characteristics: A case study using public data in Boston, MA

Many techniques for estimating exposure to airborne contaminants do not account for building characteristics that can magnify contaminant contributions from indoor and outdoor sources. Building characteristics that influence exposure can be challenging to obtain at scale, but some may be incorporated into exposure assessments using public datasets. We present a methodology for using public datasets to generate housing models for a test cohort, and examined sensitivity of predicted fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposures to selected building and source characteristics. We used addresses of a cohort of children with asthma and public tax assessor's data to guide selection of floorplans of US residences from a public database. This in turn guided generation of coupled multi-zone models (CONTAM and EnergyPlus) that estimated indoor PM2.5 exposure profiles. To examine sensitivity to model parameters, we varied building floors and floorplan, heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) type, room or floor-level model resolution, and indoor source strength and schedule (for hypothesized gas stove cooking and tobacco smoking). Occupant time-activity and ambient pollutant levels were held constant. Our address matching methodology identified two multi-family house templates and one single-family house template that had similar characteristics to 60 % of test addresses. Exposure to infiltrated ambient PM2.5 was similar across selected building characteristics, HVAC types, and model resolutions (holding all else equal). By comparison, exposures to indoor-sourced PM2.5 were higher in the two multi-family residences than the single family residence (e.g., for cooking PM2.5 exposure, by 26 % and 47 % respectively) and were sensitive to HVAC type and model resolution. We derived the influence of building characteristics and HVAC type on PM2.5 exposure indoors using public data sources and coupled multi-zone models. With the important inclusion of individualized resident behavior data, similar housing modeling can be used to incorporate exposure variability in health studies of the indoor residential environment.

How Sensitive Morphological Parameters Influence on the PM2.5 Diffusion: An Empirical Study of Two Neighborhoods in Central Beijing

Air quality is highly related to the health of a human being. Urban morphology has a significant influence on air quality; however, the specific relationship between urban morphology characteristics and air quality at the neighborhood scale has yet to be investigated, especially the vegetation effect on PM2.5 concentration and diffusion. The relevant morphological parameters based on the affected pathways of urban morphology on air quality were selected, and the sensitivity degree and laws of the selected morphological parameters to PM2.5 were quantified by numerical simulation, bivariate correlation analysis, and regression analysis. The results showed that Building Density (BD), Block Envelope Degree (BED), Average Building Volume (ABV), Average Building Floors (ABF), Standard Deviation of Building Height (SDH) and Greenbelt Coverage Rate (GCR) were Sensitive Morphological Parameters (SMPs). A positive and cosine curve trend of BD and BED with PM2.5 was observed. GCR was significant to dust retention along with vertical canopy height. When ABV = 40,000 m3 and ABF = 20F, the lowest PM2.5 concentration was examined, while increased SDH could promote airflow and enhance the capacity of PM2.5 diffusion. Finally, morphology-optimization strategies were proposed at the neighborhood scale: (1) Decreasing the BED along the street; (2) considering the species of vegetation with the appropriate height and increasing the GCR; (3) increasing the ABF of neighborhoods appropriately while controlling the ABV and distinguishing the internal SDH of neighborhoods. The study could apply the scientific basis for the planning and design of healthy and livable cities.

Investigating pedestrian connectivity within apartment complexes: a case study of Seoul and Singapore

ABSTRACT In present-day Asian cities characterised by apartment complexes—large clusters of apartment buildings with amenities—, constructing walkable apartment complexes is common, especially in Seoul and Singapore. However, scholars have criticised Seoul’s apartment complexes for hindering walkable neighbourhoods, as opposed to Singapore’s apartment complexes. Hence, we examined pedestrian connectivity within a 500-meter radius walking distance, which many researchers have recognised, inter alia, as an essential measure of walkability, of Seoul and Singapore’s apartment complexes, unveiling their design distinctions from a pedestrian connectivity perspective. We analysed eight study sites representing each decade (1970s-2000s) in both cities, focusing on the three measures of intersections affecting pedestrian connectivity within apartment complexes: the number of urban street intersections, the number of intersections on the boundary of apartment complexes, and intersection density in an apartment complex. We found that Singapore’s apartment complexes have a denser and more connected pedestrian network that is strongly integrated into a larger network of urban streets, leading to higher pedestrian connectivity within a 500-meter radius walking distance, than Seoul does. It is because, although, Seoul and Singapore’s apartment complexes appear similar, their layouts differ on a micro-scale. Singapore sites adopt different designs, such as locating pedestrian accesses at varied locations at all apartment complex boundaries through the opened boundary and pilotis on the ground floor of apartment buildings and clustering more apartment complexes on each block. These findings contribute insights into planning and designing walkable apartment complexes, which have immense value and are in high demand in most Asian cities.

The behavior of cross-laminated timber and reinforced concrete floors in a multi-story building

The behavior of cross-laminated timber (CLT) and reinforced concrete (RC) floors in a multi-story building is investigated in this paper. The load-bearing capacity, fire resistance, and sound insulation characteristics of the floors are the main focus of this research. In order to achieve this goal, a four-story building having RC floors is modeled, analyzed, and designed using the StruSoft FEM-Design software (FEM) following the Eurocodes and Swedish national annex. The building is considered to be in the city of Gävle in Sweden. Then, the RC floors of the building are replaced with the CLT floors, and the same process is done utilizing FEM. The utilization ratios (the ratios of the applied loads to the load-bearing capacities), vertical deflections, weights of the RC and CLT floors, and reaction forces of the buildings are evaluated and compared. The results show that the RC floors meet the deflection requirements well which contributes to the focus on their utilization ratios. The designed RC floors are acceptable from the vertical deflection and utilization ratio perspectives. However, the CLT floors cannot meet the vertical deflection requirements, and thus, need strengthening. The CLT floors are strengthened with supporting timber beams and columns which result in acceptable vertical deflections and utilization ratios. Fire resistance and sound insulation conditions of the RC and CLT floors are assessed by calculations based on the requirements of the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building, and Planning regulations (BBR) as well. The RC floors have the ability to be soundproof and have no difficulties in meeting the fire resistance requirements R60 of BBR. A cross-section is proposed for the CLT floors which can meet the fire resistance requirement R60 and sound insulation requirement C of BBR. The maximum reaction forces of the buildings and total weights of the floors are larger in the case of RC than CLT.

Pedestrian Inertial Navigation with Building Floor Plans for Indoor Environments via Particle Filter

<p>With the rapid development of smart city, the indoor positioning services became more and more important. During the existing solutions, inertial measurement unit (IMU) with pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) was a promising scheme since they did not require external equipment in the environment. However, the orientation drift of low-cost IMU limited their application in practical. To address this problem, a zero-velocity update (ZUPT) framework included Kalman filter and particle filter is designed based on the foot-based low-cost IMU and digital floor plan to provide the service of personal navigation. In the designed Smoothing for ZUPT-aided INSs framework, the Kalman filter is used to estimate the position and attitude by zero velocity correction technique. Then, the particle filter is used to improve the localization and heading accuracy by map matching. The position estimation presented in this study achieves an average position error of 1.16 m. The experimental results show that the designed framework can solve the personal navigation problem in the case of building plan information assistance and help improve the accuracy and reliability of continuous position determination of personal navigation systems effectively. </p> <p> </p>

Efficiency Of Using Some Floor Plate Methods In Development Planning Brawijaya High School Dormitory, Kediri, East Java

Multi-storey buildings in Indonesia cannot be separated from concrete construction work. From the past until now, many concrete construction works still use conventional methods with the assumption that the implementation costs are cheaper. One of the concerns taken is the use of multiplex material as formwork and concrete iron as reinforcement which is assembled manually in multi-storey building floor slab work. During this time there is still a lot of use of conventional formwork, meaning that formwork is made of multiplex which is formed according to the structure to be used, and later the formwork will be removed or dismantled when the poured concrete has reached sufficient strength. The current problem that is often found is that contractors often reuse formwork that has been used for more than 2 times, which is detrimental to service users. Now there are several solutions for the use of floor plate models that are developing. The purpose of this study was to obtain effective results from several methods of making floor plates for the work planning of the Taruna Brawijaya Senior High School Dormitory, Kediri, East Java.

The Urban Seismic Observatory of Catania (Italy): A Real-Time Seismic Monitoring at Urban Scale

We describe the first dense real-time urban seismic–accelerometric network in Italy, named OSU-CT, located in the historic center of Catania. The city lies in the region with the greatest danger, vulnerability, and earthquake exposure in the entire Italian territory. OSU-CT was planned and realized within the project called EWAS “an Early WArning System for cultural heritage”, aimed at the rapid assessment of earthquake-induced damage and the testing of an on-site earthquake early warning system. OSU-CT is mainly based on low-cost instrumentation realized ad hoc by using cutting-edge technologies and digital MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) triaxial accelerometers with excellent resolution and low noise. Twenty of the forty scheduled stations have already been set up on the ground floor of significant historic public buildings. In order to assess the performance of an earthquake early warning (EEW) on-site system, we also installed wide-band velocimeters (ETL3D/5s) in three edifices chosen as test sites, which will be instrumented for a structural health monitoring (SHM). In addition to several laboratory and field validation tests on the developed instruments, an effective operational test of OSU-CT was the Mw 4.3 earthquake occurring on 23 December 2021, 16 km west, south-west of Catania. Peak ground accelerations (4.956 gal to 39.360 gal) recorded by the network allowed obtaining a first urban shakemap and determining a reliable distribution of ground motion in the historical center of the city, useful for the vulnerability studies of the historical edifices.

Energy and thermal modelling of an office building to develop an artificial neural networks model

Nowadays everyone should be aware of the importance of reducing CO2 emissions which produce the greenhouse effect. In the field of construction, several options are proposed to reach nearly-Zero Energy Building (nZEB) standards. Obviously, before undertaking a modification in any part of a building focused on improving the energy performance, it is generally better to carry out simulations to evaluate its effectiveness. Using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) allows a digital twin of the building to be obtained for specific characteristics without using very expensive software. This can simulate the effect of a single or combined intervention on a particular floor or an event on the remaining floors. In this paper, an example has been developed based on ANN. The results show a reasonable correlation between the real data of the Operative Temperature with the Energy Consumption and their estimates obtained through an ANN model, trained using an hourly basis, on each of the floors of an office building. This model confirms it is possible to obtain simulations in existing public buildings with an acceptable degree of precision and without laborious modelling, which would make it easier to achieve the nZEB target, especially in existing public office buildings.