Stand-alone Buildings Research Articles

A study of vaulted roof assisted evaporative cooling channel for natural cooling of 1-floor buildings

The application of evaporative cooling technique in a 1-floor stand-alone house with vaulted roof, in order to meet the required thermal needs of inhabitants and natural cooling of the interior space, has been studied in this paper. In order to investigate the capability of the system to meet thermal comfort conditions in different environmental conditions, the performance of the system has been numerically investigated for wide ranges of wind velocities, ambient air temperatures and relative humidity values. The results indicate that when the wind velocity is higher than 0.4m/s, the air inside the building will be ventilated efficiently. In addition, as the wind velocity or the ambient air temperature increases, thermal comfort is achieved at lower values of relative humidity. The maximum allowable values for relative humidity of the ambient air to meet thermal comfort conditions are calculated based on the adaptive thermal comfort standards, and the application of the proposed system in stand-alone buildings for the centers of the provinces of Iran is investigated.

High-resolution field measurements of wind-driven rain on an array of low-rise cubic buildings

Wind-driven rain (WDR) is one of the most important moisture sources with potential negative effects on the hygrothermal performance and durability of building facades. The impact of WDR on building envelopes can be understood in a better way when the WDR intensity distribution can be accurately predicted. Most field experiments of WDR reported in the literature focused on either stand-alone buildings or on buildings in geometrically complex environments. There is a need for high-resolution measurements in more generic and idealized multi-building configurations. The present study reports WDR measurements that were conducted with high spatial and temporal resolution in a test setup consisting of an array of 9 low-rise cubic building models, located in Dübendorf, Switzerland. Detailed descriptions are provided of the building models, the surroundings, the measuring instruments, the measurements of WDR, wind speed, wind direction, horizontal rainfall intensity and air temperature during three selected rain events, as well as error estimates for the WDR measurements. The datasets of rain events and WDR measurement results are made available online to download and are intended for WDR model development and validation.

Energy consumption and CO2 emission responsibilities of terminal buildings: A case study for the future Istanbul International Airport

Airport terminal buildings are used to be treated as stand-alone buildings for their energy performance. Previous studies in the literature fall short of recognizing functional and physical relations of terminal buildings with landside and airside airport operations. In order to avoid these shortcomings, this paper extends the terminal building energy performance analysis to a broader context and expands the analysis envelope to expose the true impact of a terminal building on energy consumption and the combined emissions that it is responsible for. In this respect, this study investigates whether a green terminal building in a new airport planned for the city of Istanbul with an annual 150 million passenger capacity may off-set the loss of CO2 sequestration potential from cutting at least 657000 trees for the airport construction or not. Additional CO2 emissions corresponding to the estimated longer approach and climb out flights due to the unfavorable site selection have also been considered. This article compares a business as usual type of terminal building with four green terminal building scenarios having different CO2 emission reduction potentials. The first-law and the second-law analysis of thermodynamics have shown that constructing a green terminal building complex may not offset its CO2 emissions responsibility unless a very intensive re-forestation activity is implemented and the site is properly re-selected. As a result, this study has exemplified the essential boundaries for energy consumption analysis envelope for an airport terminal building and its true emissions responsibility.

Architectonic analysis of common facilites in European student hostels in 21st century

At the global level, the University campuses represent a dominant type of organization of all the living activities of students. This paper dealt with the architectonic analysis of common features of the recent European student hostels, which were constructed as standalone buildings. The analysis presents the advantages and shortcomings of such spatial organization. In detail are considered the common facilities, which are present to a significant degree in such spatial organization, and which can serve as models for construction of student hostels in Serbia.

Influence of the urban microclimate in street canyons on the energy demand for space cooling and heating of buildings

An important part of the world's energy is used for space cooling and heating of buildings. Its minimization has great energy saving potential. An important part of the heat exchange between buildings and the ambient surrounding is due to convective and radiative heat flows. In this study detailed building energy simulation (BES) is used to analyse the effect of neighbouring buildings on these heat flows and their influence on the space cooling and heating demand of buildings. BESs were conducted for stand-alone buildings and buildings in street canyon. This study demonstrates the importance of accounting for the urban microclimate for the prediction of the energy demand of buildings. With the proposed model most of the thermal effects of the urban microclimate can be captured and quantified on street canyon scale. Due to multiple reflections more solar and thermal radiation is absorbed at the façades of buildings in street canyons than at façades of stand-alone buildings. These effects cause higher surface temperatures in street canyons leading to higher space cooling and lower space heating demands. Other reasons are the lower convective heat transfer coefficients in street canyons, the reduced removal of heat from street canyons and the urban heat island effect.

Analysis of convective heat transfer at building façades in street canyons and its influence on the predictions of space cooling demand in buildings

An important part of the world’s energy is used for space cooling of buildings. Minimisation of space cooling, especially in hot urban environments, has great energy-saving potential. An important part of the heat exchange between buildings and the ambient surrounding is due to convective and radiative heat flows. The impact of these heat flows on energy consumption for cooling is much more important in urban areas compared to rural areas. This study aims at quantifying the influence of the urban radiation balance, the urban heat island effect and urban convective heat transfer coefficients (CHTC) on the space cooling demands. CHTC correlations were determined using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for different geometries including stand-alone buildings and street canyons of different lengths. Buoyancy was accounted for by considering differences between building surface and surrounding air temperature. It was found that the building geometry has a large impact on the CHTC correlations and that the effect of buoyancy cannot be neglected when wind speeds are low. These CHTC correlations were used for Building Energy Simulation (BES) predictions of the space cooling demand. Space cooling demands for a building in a street canyon differ up to a factor of 1.8 depending on the CHTC correlations used. Therefore, for accurate predictions of the space cooling demand, adequate CHTC correlations have to be used adjusted to the actual building configuration.

Constructing sacred space under the forces of the market: A study of an ‘upper-floor’ Protestant church in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, over half of the Protestant churches are located in the upper-floor units in commercial and residential buildings. Because of their physical locations, these churches are sometimes dubbed ‘upper-floor churches’. Unlike those that occupy stand-alone religious buildings or dwell in church-run schools and social service centres, these are often invisible in the landscapes of the city. Through analysis of a case study, this paper aims to explore the spatial practices that a Protestant community has adopted in acquiring, representing, and ritualising a business unit in a residential high-rise for building up their church. Our analysis of the case study shows that in a metropolis like contemporary Hong Kong, the construction of sacred space is full of tensions between utilitarian calculations and concerns of human relations and religious values. While the congregation had been very creative in transforming a commercial unit into a religious site, it did not show much awareness of the oppressive powers of the capitalist market and had a strong tendency to represent its spatial practices as commodities for consumption.