Living Room Windows Research Articles

To Shade or not to Shade (and how)? Annual heating energy balance and internal temperature in low energy houses in Wrocław, Poland.

One of the important areas of occupant–building fabric interaction with IEQ consequences is windows’ shading. The relevance of shading has been explored through modeling studies in the context of energy, daylighting and thermal comfort, typically aiming to inform the design stage. In owner occupied housing the architectural design sets the scene for subsequent residents’ decisions concerning windows treatment. Here, based on varied treatments for 20m2 living room window observed during an in-depth building performance evaluation in same homes, dynamic modeling in TRNSYS is used to establish the related heating loads and internal temperatures. The results allow to rank five shading usage scenarios for three physical settings, namely lack of shading, external blind and internal curtain on lower half of the window, in terms of their overheating mitigation potential, based on simplified assumptions for heating, ventilation and shading practices. The modelling points towards severe overheating issue and crucial impact of shading usage patterns on its mitigation. Yearly modelled share of overheating hours (>26 °C) are almost double for unshaded scenario compared to the most effective shading strategy (25% and 13%). The simulation contributes to understanding of the field monitoring results where the unshaded living rooms experience more severe overheating, and the two shading settings in place are associated with comparable internal thermal conditions, respectively 22% vs. 5% and 6% of yearly share of overheating hours. The simplification of human-HVAC-building interaction model likely obfuscates solar heat gain control contribution to heating load.

THE DIFFERENCES IN PARENTING STYLE CHARACTERISTICS OF CHILDREN UNDER FIVE IN TULUNGAGUNG AND BANGKALAN DISTRICT, EAST JAVA, INDONESIA

Background: Children's health is strongly influenced by the parenting style. Good parenting will affect children's optimal growth and development such as having better nutritional status and less morbidity. Balanced nutrition is needed to achieve the optimal growth and development of children starting from newborns. East Java is one of Indonesia’s provinces with the highest stunting prevalence in children under five. However, few studies focused on the parenting style differences in areas with the highest and lowest prevalence of stunting.Objectives: The aim of this study was to describe and compare the characteristics of parenting styles of children under five in Tulungagung and Bangkalan districts.Methods: This is a descriptive-analytic study with a cross-sectional design conducted among 404 mothers in Tulungagung and Bangkalan districts which were selected by purposive sampling. Data were collected using an interviewer-administered questionnaire, including family characteristics, children feeding practices, environmental sanitation, history of infection, and utilization of health services. The differences in the parenting style characteristics of children under five in two districts were analyzed using Chi-square.Result: There was a significant difference in the characteristics of mothers in Tulungagung and Bangkalan districts, including age, education level, and birth attendant. Socio-cultural, nutrition, and health-related parenting was also significantly differ in terms of parenting duration, training for caregivers, dietary taboo, parenting advice provider, early breastfeeding, other food before 6 months old, vegetable and protein food frequency, Posyandu visit frequency, vitamin A supplementation, iodized salt usage for cooking, child immunization status, child’s age of first immunizations, health facilities visit, initial action before bringing children to health facilities when sick. Significant different was also found in environment sanitation including the condition of house ceiling, walls, floor, living room windows, ventilation, kitchen vent, indoor lighting, clean water facility, ownership of latrines, children feces disposal frequency, and littering location and frequency.Conclusion: In summary, there is a parenting style discrepancy between districts with the highest and lowest prevalence of stunting in children under five.

Forensic Engineering Analysis of an Apartment Freezing Sequence Using Heat Flow Equations

Four students had staggered departures from their electrically heated third-floor shared residence apart-ment to travel home for the winter holiday break. Two pipe bursts and two frozen toilets were discovered a week after the last resident had left. The property management group gathered scene evidence and analyzed the cause of the water escape. The investigation revealed that some electric heaters had been turned off, and some bedroom and living room windows were open. A forensic engineering analysis was conducted to qualita-tively determine the effects of heater disengagement and open window positions on the apartment temperature drop and to estimate the likely start date of sub-zero Celsius conditions. Heat flow and balance equations for different sets of factors were used to quantitatively assess the instantaneous heat flow trends as the basis for understanding whether certain students carried more burden of liability. The analysis revealed that the open windows were the dominant factor for the freeze-up condition development that led to the bursts.

Domestic deities: Indo-Caribbean spatial territorialization and sacred space in South Richmond Hill, Queens

ABSTRACT Shaped by immigrants, the occupancy patterns and visual cultures of American urban neighborhoods have continually shifted over time. The South Richmond Hill section of Queens, New York demonstrates the socio-spatial theories of ethnic succession, collective memory, and heterotopia in relation to participatory place-making. Once home to German, Irish, Italian, and Eastern European immigrants and their multigenerational descendants from the early 1900s through the 1970s, the spiritual landscape of the neighborhood – today known as Little Guyana-Trinidad and Tobago – has largely shifted away from its European immigrant origins toward Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Buddhist, and Jain faith traditions. Here, uniquely Hindu spiritual markings reveal a globalized and religiously diverse neighborhood, as well as an increasingly multicultural American society writ large. This research identifies seven primary elements – jhandi prayer flags, ceremonial gates, garden shrines, living room window deities, adapted house temples, storefront temples, and pooja shops – that define the parameters of Indo-Caribbean socio-spatial territorialization in South Richmond Hill.

Deferral and the Dream

Deferral and the Dream

Cattle Upon a Thousand Hills

Cattle Upon a Thousand Hills Martha Grace Duncan (bio) I. Barn Burning Wood and hay kin burn. —William Faulkner I was two-and-a-half years-old when I stood at the living room window with my very pregnant mother, watching our barn burn down. "I think you kind of enjoyed it," she told me later. "The neighbors came and threw snowballs at the flames." [End Page 30] No firefighters ventured out to save the barn or the animals lodged therein—ten cows, a horse, and a cat. Perched at the top of a hill, on a long dirt road, our farm lay twenty miles from the nearest city, in the extreme northeast corner of Pennsylvania. We were isolated at all times but especially in winter, when snow and ice left our home beyond the reach of the outside world. Why we were living there is something of a mystery, for my parents had hardly any experience with country life. In their youth, they had flourished at Little Rock High School, then the largest high school in the country. In my mother's final year, she served as Vice President of her class, had the lead in the senior play and garnered the titles of "Most Popular," "Class Ideal," and "Everything a Girl Should Be." My father, too, was outgoing. Despite his family's limited means, he was accepted into Little Rock's high school elite, partying with kids from a prestigious neighborhood called The Heights—close relatives of the mayor of Little Rock and governor of the state. He also received accolades at graduation, the other students voting him "Wittiest" and "Most Entertaining" in a class of five hundred. After high school, my parents attended the University of Arkansas, where my mother earned a degree in home economics, and my father a degree in accounting followed by a law degree. So how did we end up on a dairy farm? The story is that while employed as an accountant in New York City, my father came to believe his desk job was making him sick. He stopped going to work and languished at home all day, anchorless and weary. Upon receiving an inheritance from his grandfather's estate, he suggested to my mother that they buy land in the country and try their hand at dairy farming. Had my mother foreseen that this move would be the first of many, perhaps she would have wondered whether the [End Page 31] problem really lay in his job. But this time, the first time, how could she have known? Optimistic by nature and deeply in love, my mother went along with his decision. Despite the gulf between their background and their new undertaking, both my parents were excited by the novelty of dairy farming. "Did I tell you we have ten cows," my mother wrote to her parents, "six of whom are milking—and more CREAM than we know what to do with. I've never tasted such rich milk!" My father had arisen before five that morning to install an electric milking machine; he saved ten dollars and three days' time by putting it in himself. Apparently, the neighbors and the dairy man were quite impressed. "Dick has been working soo hard and is so excited!" the letter concluded. "I really think this place will be beautiful in a couple of years." I have only two memories of my own from our brief years on the farm. In the first, I am sitting on the farmhouse steps, trying to whistle a tune like my father. I blow and blow but nothing comes out. Finally, after many attempts, a clear, musical sound pierces the air, and I run to tell my mother: "I can whistle!" In the second, there is no scene, only words—the names of five of our cows: Daisy, Pansy, Mama, Brownie, and Buttercup. "You probably named them," said Irene, our live-in babysitter of those years, when I told her this recollection. "I mean, your father was rather like a child himself." I guessed what she meant. Being so childlike, he would have understood that naming them would give me pleasure. My father and I were constant...

Green Lights, Blue Skies

Green Lights, Blue Skies Lea Carpenter (bio) David didn't have a single problem, at least not according to David. When Lizzie finally convinced him to talk to a shrink, he came home after the very first session and announced, "I'm perfect, apparently," so she said, "You're what?" And he repeated, "I'm perfect, can you believe it? That's what your doctor said, perfect. I actually think he said it twice." And as he spread jam on a leftover pancake, he went on to explain how the doctor praised his willingness to "try out self-reflection," how that indicated depth on his part. And empathy. He leaned into that word when he said it, knowing it would resonate. Empathy had been an issue between them. "You don't even know what empathy means," she'd said, the last time they'd fought about it. "I know exactly what it means," he said. "It means that whatever you feel is true." He told her he wasn't actually sure if the doctor he'd seen, the one she'd so carefully selected, even was a doctor. Which was so like David, who'd been bred to distrust. It was part of his pathology. It [End Page 189] was part of what she'd hoped the good doctor could unpack. And perhaps he had sensed that, which was why he had to knock the experience. He asked her if she even understood the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist, pausing as he often did to deliver a lecture on a topic about which he knew absolutely nothing and therefore about which he was infinitely knowledgeable. He told her he confronted the doctor about whether the doctor was, in fact, a "proper" doctor. And before Lizzie could question the use of the word "proper," David was barreling on, as was his way. "I wasn't sure," he said. "I didn't see any certificates on the wall." And as she felt her blood pressure rise, he went on to say how the "quote unquote doctor" had said, emphatically and with confidence, "You don't have any of the problems other people I see have." David looked at Lizzie, his wife of five years, and thought, Checkmate. He looked at her and thought, Take that, empathy. And she looked at him and thought that if she had a hammer, she would use it to smash through the wall. She could have countered at that point. She could have said something like, "A psychiatrist would never say that, never tell someone they don't have problems," only suddenly she couldn't hear herself, she couldn't see six inches in front of her. The room blurred to blues. She went to the window and looked out. He walked to her and crossed his arms. "People having serious problems," he announced, "is an epidemic." Then he laughed at the windowpane, as if windowpanes could also be intimidated. "People should really get their shit together, doll." He often called her "doll," as if he were a 1940s gangster, which in a way he kind of was. [End Page 190] David smoked Cubans out of their living room window. Too lazy to walk outside, or maybe he simply knew the smoke annoyed her. Something must have happened in that shrink's office he was now carefully burying alongside all the other train wrecks, the tsunamis. It would take Freud plus a team of neurosurgeons to clear all that out. Smoking inside reinforced David's sense that he was in control, master of a certain universe, their universe of two. Conditioned against rule. Conditioned against gentle. In his mind, she was simply there to keep things clean. Clean dishes. Clean socks. Clean conscience. Most girls draw lines early on in relationships. But drawing lines was difficult with David. Logic eluded him. This is what Lizzie told her girlfriends. This is what she told her mother. And this is what, increasingly, she told herself. When, once, she might have said something like, That is a line and you are never stepping over it, David simply would have laughed and said, Oh, darling, that's not a...

Queen Anne's Lace, and: Conte de Fées, and: Scheria, and: Amor Veneris, and: Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre

Queen Anne's Lace, and: Conte de Fées, and: Scheria, and: Amor Veneris, and: Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre Vanessa Stauffer (bio) Queen Anne's Lace In the meadow across the road from the houseshe's growing up in, the girl wadeship-deep in weeds, her unhemmed cuffsstained green in damp dusk. Each fiber makesa wick or a stem, a vein drinking upwater or flame from the softocean smoking mist between straight stalks,the corn neatly rowed as the lines in the booksshe spends whole days in, home aloneall summer in the kingdom ofher mind. Nights she is afraid of the skyhollowed cobalt at its center, pale horizonfading fast, like the bottom dropping outof the carnival ride, the spinning drumpressing her into its curve, the metalhot against her back, her brother laughingwhen she cries. Sometimes her mother makes herzip up a dress from the hand-me-down bagher cousins left behind, poses herin the meadow with a flower from the garden—elegant flag of iris, a tulip's perfect cup—so she can take a photograph. When the printsarrive in their envelope, the girl's smilelooks uncertain, her head turned to follow the cameralike wild daisies swiveled on their stems,tracking the movement of the sunacross a cloudless sky. She looks back & seesthe television's underwater glowlapping the living room windows, imagines herfather sunk in his chair. Her mother slamsthe screen door, keys gripped in a fist [End Page 133] on her way to work, the night shiftstocking shelves inside the grocery store'sfluorescent midnight. The girl picks a cool bouquetshe'll leave by the road: purple poms ofclover the rabbits love, pale petals ofcornflower, starched & papery atop the stem'shaphazard joints. She's gotten tall this year.Soon the dresses won't fit & she'll grow intoanother year of cast-offs, starting junior highin someone else's clothes. The first starssalt the sky. She thinks she seesMars like a punched hole, red-orange as her handcupped to cover a flashlight's lens, Venusdrifting distant, cool as a gem. She picksthe one that shares her middle name,watches how they sway as if adrift,luminous against the vagueleftover light. It could be hemlock,the white wheel spinning ancientprisoners into endless nightwere it not for the shining bead the blossomscircle like a central star—blue as bloodin want of breath, drawn back to the heart. [End Page 134] Conte de Fées —Paris, 1881 Mother says I may not draw the menMonsieur has hired to pose.Also I must wear sleeves and skirtswhich cling like the strips of damp muslinwe wind our figures with, the clay kept wetwhen we go home. Then she scoldsmy ruined hems, red-stained and stiffwith dust, my hands stripped dryand cracked. She says None will wantto place a ring on a hand like that.Back home I would not listen but escapeddown Rue Pignon to the woodswhere boulders spill in malformed shapesit's said the devil made. I learnedfrom my first master it's just sandstonefused from the silt of ancient seasand worked upon as all things are:by time and accident, the wind's blond brush,rain the rasp I use to finda figure in a quarried stone.Master has gone to Rome so now MonsieurRodin will oversee our atelier. He sayssurely École des Beaux Arts would have meif I weren't a girl. I know his figureL'Age d'airain—the soldier empty-handed,caught like a breath in the throat.I'd never kissed a man until last night.The others had gone back to their flatsas evening stole down the Seine. Monsieurkept thumbing through my sheets,setting aside the sketches he thoughtshowed immaturity. When I was youngMother once found the figures I'd hiddenand cursed when she saw what they were:nudes I had...

Validation of large scale noise exposure modelling by long-term measurements

Abstract Large scale noise exposure modelling is used in epidemiological research projects as well as for noise mapping and strategic action planning. Such calculations should always be accompanied by an assessment of uncertainty, on the one hand to check for systematic deviations and on the other hand to investigate the sources of uncertainty to address them in future studies. Within the SiRENE (Short and Long Term Effects of Transportation Noise Exposure) project, a large scale nationwide assessment of Switzerland’s road, railway, and aircraft noise exposure was conducted for the year 2011. In the present follow-up study, we equipped 180 sleeping and/or living room windows with sound level meters for one week. The resulting dataset was used to validate noise exposure modelling within SiRENE. For the noise metric LDEN the comparison revealed a difference of 1.6 ± 5 dB(A) when taking all measurements into account. After removing measurement sites with noise mitigation measures not considered in the modelling, the difference to the calculation was reduced to 0.5 ± 4 dB(A). As major sources of uncertainty, the position accuracy and topicality of infrastructure and building geometries, the traffic modelling as well as the acoustic source and propagation models were identified.

Feeling the Grid: Lorna Simpson’s Concrete Abstraction

Feeling the Grid:Lorna Simpson’s Concrete Abstraction Lex Morgan Lancaster (bio) LORNA SIMPSON’s The Park (1995) is a photograph of a city park at night, blown up and screen printed onto a large grid of six felt panels (Fig. 1). Approaching the image, our perspective is destabilized, even rendered sublime: we look down through the small forest of trees at a clearing of grass illuminated by scattered spotlights that suggest a walking path. In the distance, rows of buildings and skyscrapers create an expansive grid of windows that echoes the larger gridded structure of the felt canvas. Two narratives flank the installation of the gridded, felt image. To the left of the image, a felt text panel reads: Just unpacked a new shiny silver telescope. And we are up high enough for a really good view of all the buildings and the park. The living room window seems to be the best spot for it. On the sidewalk below a man watches figures from across the path. And to the right: It is early evening; the lone sociologist walks through the park, to observe private acts in the men’s public bathrooms. These facilities are men’s and women’s rooms back to back. He focuses on the layout of the men’s room—right to left: basin, urinal, urinal, urinal, stall, stall. He decides to adopt the role of voyeur and look [End Page 131] out in order to go unnoticed and noticed at the same time. His research takes several years. He names his subjects A, B, C, X, Y, and O, records their activities for now, and their license plates when applicable for later. Flanked by the perspective-shifting projection of these texts, the gridded image becomes a scene of observation and seriality. The grid of felt tiles offers an analogue to the sidewalk’s squares of pavement and the side-by-side rectangular Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Lorna Simpson, The Park (1995), serigraph on felt, six felt image panels with two felt text panels, 68 x 67.5 in. Image courtesy of the artist. [End Page 132] openings of stall by stall. The shiny new telescope, which both enables voyeuristic habit and beckons toward the years of a sociologist’s research, suggests a sense of duration that corresponds to the boundless intervals of the grid itself. Although no one appears in the images, the scenes offer multiple viewing positions from which to project narratives of private and public acts; such implied acts, like our spectatorship, are at once intimate and impersonal. An image about the erotics of serial looking, The Park is not only comprised of parts but is also itself part of Simpson’s larger “Public Sex” series. In each of these installations, black and white photographs of public spaces are blown up and screen printed onto separate felt panels arranged in grids. Pictures of uninhabited places become the implied locations of sexual and voyeuristic acts described in narrative text panels: they present a landscape, a city, a staircase, a theatre, a hotel bedroom, but they are devoid of bodies. Rendered abstract and fuzzy in their expansion to felt, the images depict scenes of sexual encounters we never see. The absence of bodies in this series may seem a departure from Simpson’s previous work, which characteristically features black women as central figures. But the texts included with the “Public Sex” pictures also call to mind the absent bodies, as well as the oblique, abstracted body that appears consistently throughout her previous work—a body that is so often framed by different versions of the grid format. The encounter between text and image that populates the scenes and renders them as sites of sexual encounter and sexualized looking is notable, I argue, for its recourse to the grids that mediate the installation. In the context of The Park, the grid enables certain forms of relationality that, I mantain, do queer work. Not only do the narratives reference the gay cruising sites of public parks and men’s restrooms, as well as the voyeur(s) who observe them, but also the gridded image further references the grid’s ambivalent...

View on outdoor vegetation reduces noise annoyance for dwellers near busy roads

The effect of outdoor vegetation, as seen from the living room's window facing an inner-city ring road, on the self-reported noise annoyance, was studied. Face-to-face surveys were taken at 105 participants at their homes in the city of Ghent (Belgium). The living room window, facing the road, was in all cases highly exposed to road traffic noise and characterized by Lden levels between 65 and 80dBA, as taken from the official European Environmental Noise Directive's city road traffic noise map. All houses were selected to have a pronounced front-back level difference to rule out this effect. The self-reported extent to which vegetation is visible through the living room window was shown to be a strong and statistically significant predictor of the self-reported noise annoyance. The complete absence of view on vegetation results in a 34% chance of being at least moderately annoyed by noise, while this chance reduced to 8% for respondents answering to have a very pronounced vegetation view, notwithstanding median Lden levels of 73dBA at the street-facing facade of the dwelling. Real vision on outdoor vegetation was shown to be essential - living room (indoor) plants and the mere presence of vegetation in the neighborhood is insufficient. Road traffic noise facade insulation, measured in-situ at each dwelling, could not be linked to the self-reported noise annoyance.

Marie T. Filbin: in memoriam.

Marie T. Filbin: in memoriam.

HUBUNGAN ANTARA KOMPONEN RUMAH DENGAN KEJADIAN PENYAKIT ISPA DI WlLAYAH KERJA PUSKESMAS WONOKUSUMO KOTA SURABAYA

Home environment give influence on upper way respiration disease (ISPA) asenvironment based disease indicated by improving ISPA incidence because of unhealthy homeand residential. Wonokusumo public health center during last five years ISPAalways positionedfirst ranking in Top 10 diseases with average more than 10.000 cases. This research done torecognize correlation between home component and ISPA incidence in Wonokusumo publichealth center Surabaya region in 2013.Analytic research method done with case control. This research compare between casegroup and control group. Sample taken as many 94 houses for case group respective andcontrol group with population 10.013 patients. Sampling technique using simple randomsampling with data analysis method using chi square test.The assessment result explain that house component assessment aspects which meetrequirement house component assessmentaspects are ceilings, wall, floor, living room window,and lighting. While unmeet requirement are bedroom aspects, ventilation, and kitchen fumecavity. Most of case group have home component is unmet requirements with percentage79.8% and most of control group as many 74.5%. The result of the research indicating thatthere are no correlation between house components and ISPAdisease incidence.Suggested health workers give information, citizen hoped to keep house cleanliness andheld contest about health home in order to citizen more motivated again for more improvinghouse that meeting healthy requirements.Keywords: House component, ISPAincidence, health house.

The Influence of Surrounding Buildings on the Natural Ventilation Performance of Residential Dwellings in Hong Kong

Natural ventilation in residential dwellings is very important for occupants’ health and comfort. Previous studies by the authors have concluded that natural ventilation performance in dwellings can be enhanced by positioning the two groups of window openings (bedroom windows and living room windows) in opposite directions or perpendicular to each other; and/or the use of side-hung windows. However, the buildings selected for those studies were located in an isolated site, for the purpose of focused evaluation of the influence of various configuration parameters and window types. However, in Hong Kong, buildings are tightly packed. In this study, the influence of urban environment was thoroughly considered. A residential estate was identified to represent typical characteristics of the urban environment in Hong Kong for CFD modelling and simulations. Bi-variate correlations and K-means cluster analyses were adopted to identify a set of probable local wind conditions, which took into account the combined influence of prevailing wind conditions, urban environment and building levels. Through side-by-side comparison of results obtained with and without considering the influence of surrounding buildings, it was found that surrounding buildings lower the wind power available in the vicinity of buildings by 2.5% to 86.8%, increase the angular spread of prevailing winds and adversely affect natural ventilation in residential dwellings. The increase in the mean age of air (MAA) is 0.6 times to 1.5 times. In respect of influence of openings configurations and window types, the conclusion drawn in this study was found to be in agreement with previous studies.

Analysis of Indoor Air Quality in Different Exhaust Conditions in Residential Buildings in Winter

The research analyzes the residence buildings in winter in China which use toilet exhaust units and kitchen ventilator in various combinations as the existing exhaust system, meanwhile, set adjustable air intakes above bedroom and living room windows respectively. In order to provide certain security to solve the comfortable living environment, the indoor transient CO2 concentration distribution is simulated in different exhaust conditions by software Airpak.

Crouching Tiger (review)

Reviewed by: Crouching Tiger Hope Morrison Compestine, Ying Chang. Crouching Tiger; illus. by Yan Nascimbene. Candlewick, 2011. [40p]. ISBN 978-0-7636-4642-4 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R 6–9 yrs. Vinson can’t seem to find a way to connect with his grandfather, visiting from China; he can’t manage the discipline of Grandpa’s tai chi, for instance, but Grandpa isn’t impressed with Vinson’s movie-style kung fu. When he sees Grandpa in action, however (kicking a board away before it hits an unwary passerby), he changes his mind and studies with his new mentor, eventually earning himself a place in the Chinese New Year parade. While Compestine’s story is fairly straightforward intergenerational/intercultural conflict fare, the specifics of the tale, especially the tai chi practice (with poses modeled and identified on each page) make this an inviting take on the issue. The narrative speaks to many issues (a boy embarrassed by his culture and his elders, a young person’s inability to recognize the values of focus and patience) that may be familiar to listeners. Nascimbene’s illustrations are cool and clean, with full-page, tidily bordered ink and watercolor compositions facing pages of text; creative viewpoints—looking into the yard from the living room window, watching Vinson and his grandfather walk home from a far distance—add interest. While an obvious selection for marking the celebration of Chinese New Year, this is also a solid relationship story worth sharing at any time of year. An author’s note about martial arts and Chinese New Year is included. Copyright © 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

블라인드 설치 위치에 따른 실내열환경 변화에 관한 연구

In order to prevent incoming solar radiation, it is necessary to study about blinds` blocking out effects of heat that are installed at the balcony at an apartment house. To figure out the heating effects from the windows, a study for indoor thermal environment according to the location of blinds is also needed. In order to find out the changes of indoor thermal environment, we`ll compare models of a house building with or without Venetian blinds: one place has an extended living room removing a balcony and another one has a normal balcony. The result is as follows. Without blinds, the place with an extended living room has benefits for saving heat compare to the place with a normal balcony. It`s because the warm air heated by the incoming solar radiation moves into the living room through convection current and radiation which causes an increase of the indoor temperature. At an extended living room, the temperature difference from outside and inside, when blinds were installed inside, was while it was when the blinds were installed at outside of the balcony. It is evaluated that setting up the blind outside prevents much heat. At the space with a normal balcony, installing blinds at living room windows can save much heat compare to installing blinds at windows at the balcony. The indoor temperature was low when blinds were installed. It can be said that blinds block heat from the incoming solar radiation. Moreover, when blinds are installed, there is a big change of indoor temperature due to the radiation from the blinds` slat and convective activities in between the blinds and windows. This also has to be considered.

Evaluating the influence of openings configuration on natural ventilation performance of residential units in Hong Kong

Natural ventilation performance of a residential dwelling is affected by a combination of internal and external factors. External factors are often subject to constraints beyond the control of site planners and architects. Internal factors include the openings configuration, which site planners and architects are free to design the way they deem proper. However, little information is available in this regard. In this study, a case study was conducted by tracer-gas measurements at a carefully selected residential unit for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model validation. A hypothetical residential unit was formulated to represent the characteristics of typical residential units in Hong Kong. CFD simulations were performed based on the hypothetical unit to evaluate the influence of different openings configurations on natural ventilation performance using the mean age of air. Openings configuration is defined by many parameters. Among the three studied parameters, evaluation results indicate that natural ventilation performance of residential units was most affected by the relative position of the two window openings groups (i.e. bedroom windows and living room windows), followed by building orientation and doors positions. It was found that better natural ventilation performance could be achieved when the two openings groups were positioned in opposite directions or perpendicular to each other. The combined effect of the three parameters was evaluated. It was found that varying two parameters at the same time offered positive improvements in natural ventilation performance, but varying all three parameters did not result in any improvement because of the counter-effects of changes in doors positions.

Touch

3 CANDICE MORROW TOUCH J ohn and Lilly arrived home from a disastrous date, each quietly surprised at how peaceful their house appeared from the outside. John stalled the sedan at the mailbox to admire the moon’s illumination of delicate icicles hanging from the window boxes. The iron loveseat Lilly had insisted they move from their Texas porch was covered in snow, the seat’s back a coiling pattern of perfect white hearts. The view’s only stain was the living room window, a long, reflective rectangle that would have been beautiful if not covered in bars. The previous owner installed the bars, and from the beginning Lilly had said they “screamed prison.” She insisted John remove them by summer. To her, they kept things in. To John, they kept things out. He couldn’t say precisely what things, as there was little threat of robbery in Hardin. But when he left for work each morning, he imagined the thick fog that rolled down from the mountains circling his house, looking for entry. The fog was everything he wished to keep from their six-month-old daughter. It was doubt and pettiness and betrayal. Its edges were green with the world’s greed. He knew it was silly to imagine morally destructive moisture attacking tiny Sylvia, collecting in her lungs and maturing her from the inside out. Even more ridiculous was thinking a bit of metal could stop the process. Yet each time their home began to shrink in his rearview mirror, he felt relieved knowing the bars were on the windows. “Not a snowflake out of place,” John said. Right now, Sylvia would be sleeping in the nursery at the back of the house, and their sitter, Teeny, would be draped tiredly over the crib’s edge, humming a lullaby in the soft glow of a Cinderella night-light. “Can we go inside?” Lilly said. “Tonight, maybe?” He parked in the driveway, the garage being full of their before -baby lives. Workout equipment, hunting equipment, sewing equipment—all crammed into a damp, one-car space. At dinner, he’d joked to Lilly that the only equipment they needed colorado review 4 now was a pacifier and two sets of earplugs. Funny, he thought, but Lilly’s smile had wilted, her eyes becoming fixed to her water glass. That was during the appetizer; by the time the entrees arrived, the air was completely thickened at their table—a familiar, insufferable thick. Cutting his steak was a challenge, the knife working through the added weight of forced conversation . “Thank you for a lovely evening,” Lilly said as he switched the engine off. The words ballooned from her mouth in small clouds of mist, and John couldn’t determine the amount of sarcasm in them. The evening was anything but lovely, which she knew—right? If so, why pretend now, and if not pretending, why resort to passive cruelty? “You’re welcome.” He tried mimicking her tone and immediately regretted it. Lilly slammed her door and stomped through snow to the house’s side entrance where she shivered with arms crossed, waiting for him to bring the keys. He had insisted they reinstate date-night, though they were forced to spend it in one of the town’s four restaurants or in the small (only two screens) theater. Hardin, Montana, was not Houston, Texas. Still, they’d enjoyed several small successes. Two weeks ago they strolled down the short main street, holding hands and laughing while a dog got his face stuck in a yogurt cup. Three weeks before that, they saw a romantic comedy, and Lilly put her hand on his thigh while the heroine stumbled into a kiss with the hero. Tonight John was not so lucky. What happened to the Lilly who curled against him in bed and whispered, “You’re my bff,” while trying to twirl his untwirlable hair? Her body was plump and soft before and during her pregnancy with Sylvia. Her hands—“earth hands” she called them—were thick but gentle, and he often imagined their movements over him like those of small woodland creatures, nipping here, petting there. He wondered if it was her...

From Territories

From Territories LaRose T. Parris (bio) 1 Traffic on East 176th Street is risky. Baby hair at my neck-back prickles at the fear in Ma and Dad’s voices. Their darting black eyes are glistening marbles that threaten, as they make us swear to look up and down the street two-three times before crossing. Then, their eyes go still. Magnets sucking the three of us into their trance, interrupted only by warnings that crackle and sing. “Listen, nuh. Unnu cyaan’t jus cross di street like unnu deh a coun-tree. Dem heah Americans . . . especially di mad heroine junky dem, jus lo-o-vah drag race. An dem no care if dem lick down innocent, likkle pickney, like unnu. Naw, sah. Is pure sport fi dem. Unnu mus mind.” Summertime, our parents patrol the front yard. Ma at least squats down to weed her plot of roses and sunflowers, frowning over her shoulder at the thought of us daring to cross. But Dad just strides. Stretching his long legs five-six paces, back and forth, forth and back across our shoebox yard. His bulging arms fold tight across his chest, matching the stiff scowl creasing his sweat-shine forehead. “Ple-e-e-ea-ea-se, Ma?” I screw up my face pitifully and tug her red, gold, black and green dashiki’s crisp, pointed sleeve. “I promise I’ll stay right by the living room window—right underneath.” Then, I remind her that I have no choice, I have to play by myself since none of our friends are home, Johnny’s napping and it’s Marie’s turn to help with dinner (even though I know she’s at our desk in a trance, etching tiny motions, enlarging her favorite scene from the latest Fantastic Four). “Please, Ma. We’ll be eleven in three days. “Pre-teens.” “No boddah rush-rush so fi grow big, Miss. Ang. Almost is another word fi not quite. And you’re still a child.” Not for long . . . in a few years we will be teenagers dressing up in go-go boots and hot pants just like Cousin Kim, just like those girls on Soul Train with Afros bouncing and free smiles lighting the way. But for now I can play. Tilt my head to catch a glimpse outside the living room window and see mounds of snow piled up against our gate. I have to get outside. “Jus doan mek me see yu even tink ‘bout crossin’ dat street by yuself. Y’understand?” “Thanks, Ma.” [End Page 818] Yank my parka from the hall closet, hangers clang and I race down the steps with my hat jumping off my ears. Tug the front door open over the stubborn shag carpet and a blast of late February wind tears my eyes. I zip up my coat and pull my wool hat all the way down over my ears. A loud sigh transforms into a frosty puff of air that melts into the humming of our block. Blaring car horns from an orange Volkswagen bus and a mint van announce a fight. “Hey, man! You drive like tha mothafuckin’ pigs!” “Fuck you, maricon!” They fly all the way up the block just as the number 27 bus groans and whines to a stop on Soundview Avenue. And the six train’s boiling kettle screech signals its stop so I jump and jangle, jump from the doorstep onto the driveway to join in. The jingle-jangling weight of Dad’s spare change draws down one side of my parka. Same coat from last year and the other pocket’s ripped so I tilt to one side, the heavy change dragging me to the left, lopsided. Ma and Dad say we have to economize, cut back on things cause of inflation. But every night Dad still adds more coins to the growing stacks of quarters and Kennedy silver dollars on his dresser top. And I take handfuls to fill my pockets. A whoosh of air nothing like winter wind passes through me before I see the thing’s shadow. Not ready yet, not without my magic machete—my bark-stripped tree branch hidden in...