Types Of Public Buildings Research Articles

Heating Performance and Energy Efficiency Analysis of Air-Source Heat Pumps in Public Buildings Across Different Climate Zonings

Article Heating Performance and Energy Efficiency Analysis of Air-Source Heat Pumps in Public Buildings Across Different Climate Zonings Junbao Fan 1, Yilin Liu 1,*, Jing Ma 2, Ying Cao 1,2, Zhibin Zhang 1, Xin Cui 1 and Liwen Jin 1,* 1 School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, No. 28 Xianning West Road, Xi’an 710049, China 2 China Architecture Design and Research Group, Beijing 100044, China * Correspondence: ylliu@xjtu.edu.cn (Y.L.); lwjin@xjtu.edu.cn (L.J.) Received: 11 July 2024; Revised: 3 September 2024; Accepted: 5 September 2024; Published: 20 September 2024 Abstract: Public buildings exhibit the highest operational energy consumption and contribute the most to carbon emissions compared to other types of building. The electrification of energy terminals in public buildings is crucial for the energy conservation and emission reduction, especially the energy-saving retrofitting of heating systems. Given the significant impact of climate on the performance of air-source heat pumps, this study explored the performance and energy efficiency of air-source heat pump systems in public buildings across different climate zonings. Using Design Builder software, the physical models of three types of public buildings (commercial, hotel, and office) were constructed, and the annual variations in the building load was analyzed. Considering the effects of defrosting and low-temperature conditions, an air-source heat pump heating system models were developed using TRNSYS software. The simulation results showed that the average COP of the heat pump system on the coldest day in Harbin, Beijing, and Shanghai were 1.7, 2.46 and 2.49, respectively. Moreover, the analysis factor correlation analysis reveals that the COP of the heat pump system is positively correlated with the dry-bulb temperature, negatively correlated with the building load. Surprisingly, the COP is not affected by the types of public buildings. The findings of this study are expected to provide valuable guidance for the application and regulation of air-source heat pumps in the public buildings.

The impact of double skin facades on thermal comfort in public buildings in Constantine, Algeria

In recent years, and in order to obtain energy-efficient buildings, double-skin facades have been used by builders as an alternative to reduce energy consumption, mainly in public buildings. In Algeria, double skin facades have become very popular and widely used especially for their aesthetic value. In this work, we show the role of the DSF to optimize the thermal comfort in public buildings and the contribution of the types of building materials in the optimization. For this, we studied three types of public buildings (of a cultural nature) in Constantine, a city in the North-East of Algeria, characterized by a semi-arid climate. All of these buildings had double skin façade and were designed and built differently in terms of construction technique and choice of construction materials. This research is focused on the comparative study of the (03) three public buildings and their respective temperature status, carried out by in-situ measurements (indoor and outdoor) in two extreme periods (under-heating period in winter, and overheating period in summer) during the day. The results of this work show that the DSF improves thermal comfort by increasing the difference in temperature between the interior and the exterior, up to 10°C in winter and up to 24°C in summer, and that the building materials constituting the DSF and the orientation influence its thermal performance.

Energy consumption prediction and energy-saving suggestions of public buildings based on machine learning

Energy consumption prediction can help the government to formulate building energy consumption quotas and buildings energy consumption correlation analysis can provide a clear direction for buildings energy conservation and renovation. In the study, the energy consumption data of four types of public buildings in Guangxi in the four quarters of 2021 based on five machine learning models was trained and predicted. The energy consumption data was analyzed for correlation based on two methods of influencing factor correlation analysis. Finally, based on the prediction model and correlation analysis results, suggestions for energy conservation and renovation were given to eight buildings. The results showed that compared to other models, CNN had higher prediction accuracy, and the fitting regression index was generally above 0.95. The season had little impact on the characteristics correlation, but the building type had a significant impact. The electricity consumption had a high correlation with the energy consumption of all types of buildings. Through case analysis, it was concluded that some buildings did not need energy-saving renovation for the time being, while others require multiple phases of energy reduction over several quarters to meet the requirements.

Main Guardhouse — A Military Public Building of the 18th century

The development of modern public administration in European cities facilitated the construction of various types of public buildings. Among these, guardhouses were a prominent type in the 18th century, used to house the police force under civil or military jurisdiction. Guardhouses were widespread within the Habsburg Empire and were common in the Croatian and Slavonian Military Frontier.

A Statistical Analysis of Energy Consumption Survey of Public Buildings in a Hot Summer and Cold Winter Coastal Zone of China

Public buildings consume the largest proportion of total energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions in the building sector of China. Enhancing building energy efficiency becomes a necessary way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy waste. In this study, 10-year real data from 2000 buildings covering five different types of public buildings in a hot summer and cold winter zone in eastern coastal China were investigated to analyze energy-saving potential (ESP) and the impacts of various influencing factors on building energy performance. The concept of energy consumption limit (ECL) was proposed and used for identifying high energy-consuming buildings and the calculation of ESP. Hotels, shopping malls, and office buildings were the top three types of buildings with high ESP. ESP for the high energy-consuming buildings based on the benchmark limits was more than 18%, and that for three-star hotels and shopping malls was 51%. In addition, a correlation analysis between energy consumption and influencing factors was carried out, which laid the foundation for the development of building energy performance assessment and diagnosis tools.

Research on the Carbon Emission Baselines for Different Types of Public Buildings in a Northern Cold Areas City of China

Global excessive CO2 emissions have caused serious environmental and health problems, such as global warming, melting glaciers, droughts, floods, and extreme temperatures, and have become a common challenge for the world. China has set a dual carbon goal, with the peak carbon emissions before 2030. In China, the building sector accounts for 50.9% of the country’s carbon emissions. In particular, public buildings are characterized by a high carbon emission intensity, accounting for 38.6% of carbon emissions in the building sector, which affects the achievement of the dual carbon goal in China’s building sector. Establishing a reasonable baseline of carbon emissions contributes to quota management and trading of carbon emissions for public buildings in Tianjin, China, and will ultimately contribute to the reduction of carbon emissions. This study investigates the operational energy consumption and carbon emissions of 721 public buildings in Tianjin (including electricity, natural gas, and district heating). The applicability of the Quartile method and the K-means clustering algorithm was compared to determine the carbon emission baseline of different types of public buildings, such as constraint value, guiding value, and advanced value, based on which the dynamic baseline from 2022 to 2030 was determined. The results show that the advanced value, guiding value, and constraint value of the Tianjin public building carbon emission baseline obtained using the Quartile method are more reasonable than those obtained by the K-means clustering algorithm. Furthermore, the carbon emission baseline in 2030 will be reduced by 3.4~9.2% compared to 2022. This study can guide the formulation of carbon emission trading schemes, and support Tianjin’s building sector to achieve the “carbon peak”.

Incentive Mechanism and Subsidy Design for Continuous Monitoring of Energy Consumption in Public Buildings (CMECPB): An Overview Based on Evolutionary Game Theory

Rapid urbanization and the continued expansion of buildings have resulted in a consistent rise in the energy consumption of buildings. At the same time, the monitoring of building energy consumption has to achieve the goals of an “Emission peak” and “Carbon neutrality”. Numerous energy consumption monitoring systems have been established in several types of public buildings. However, there is a need to ensure that the data are continuously acquired and of superior quality. Scholars have noted that the in-depth research connected to the continuous monitoring of energy consumption in public buildings (CMECPB) is currently sparse. As a result, additional precise quantitative studies targeting the behavior of various stakeholders are also lacking. Hence, there is a need to explore the definition of value and the dynamic benefits of relevant subjects in continuous energy consumption monitoring based on evolutionary game theory and to propose incentive policies. This paper constructs an evolutionary game model for CMECPB between an energy service company (ESCO) and its owner to study the dynamic evolution path of a game system and the evolutionarily stable strategy under market-based mechanisms. Furthermore, by introducing government actions, the incentive policies and subsidy strategy for different subjects of interest are probed in detail by developing a principal-agent model to explore the incentive strength. The following conclusions can be reached: (1) it is inefficient and risky to rely only on the owner and the ESCO in achieving the optimal Pareto equilibrium; (2) the optimal incentives are “fixed incentives” in the case of information symmetry and a “fixed incentive + variable incentive” in the case of information asymmetry; (3) the choice of optimal incentive strategy is also influenced by the cost effort coefficient, risk aversion, external uncertainty, and integrated value transformation coefficient; (4) the incentive intensity and subsidy should be determined by comprehensive analysis with multiple indicators based on the conventional value of a project and the external value of a particular project. An in-depth understanding of each component of the CMECPB pathway yields insights into overcoming the challenges of building energy saving. Furthermore, the results may be useful in developing targeted, effective incentive policies for different disciplines and promoting the continued progress of monitoring building energy consumption and building energy efficiency.

Using the case of the Krasnodar Territory to establish centers for research and education focused on environmental protection

Introduction. The subject of the research is peculiarities of functional-technological and volumetric-spatial organization of scientific and educational complexes of ecological orientation. Relevance of this topic is determined by the lack of institutions of additional education and the unsatisfactory state of the environmental situation in the Krasnodar Territory. The purpose of the study was to reveal the principles of designing scientific and educational complexes of ecological orientation. For the first time, scientific and educational complexes of ecological orientation are considered as a new type of public building in the system of additional education, the technological component and their functional content are revealed. Recommendations for the creation of a new type of public building have been identified. During the experimental design, a conceptual model of the proposed type of building in the conditions of the first climatic zone was worked out.
 
 Materials and methods. The research methodology is based on the analysis of volumetric-planning organization of the structure of scientific and educational centers of ecological orientation, the study of text and graphic materials in domestic and foreign publications, electronic resources on the design of scientific and educational institutions, including in English. The generalization of the materials was carried out on the basis of methods of biosimilar design, carrying out field surveys with photovisual analysis. The informational and empirical basis of the study is the regulatory and legislative acts in force on the territory of the Russian Federation, as well as the design documentation.
 
 Results. A pilot project for the Imereti lowland with a centre for ecological monitoring of the problems of the Black Sea coastline destruction and the population of rare animal and plant species has been developed.
 
 Conclusions. The problems arising from negative natural phenomena, anthropogenic impact and other risks for the formation of a comfortable urban environment are defined. Classification of urban planning and spatial planning solutions of scientific and educational centers of ecological orientation is proposed. The architectural concept of the perspective ecological scientific and educational complex has been developed on the example of the Krasnodar Territory on the basis of complex approaches, covering social, functional, economic, ecological and aesthetic aspects of realization of design solutions.

Features of architectural monuments in North Kazakhstan

This article examines the current state and features of the architectural monuments of the Northern Kazakhstan on the example of the Petropavlovsk city. The stylistic, architectural-artistic and functional-planning features of certain types of public buildings and structures of the 19th to early 20th centuries have been studied.

Application of Deep Learning Model in Building Energy Consumption Prediction.

In order to achieve China's energy conservation and emission reduction goal of peaking carbon dioxide emissions around 2030, it is of great significance. An important means of building energy conservation and emission reduction is the fine management of building energy consumption, which is based on the accurate prediction of building energy consumption, so as to support the optimal management of building operation and achieve the goal of energy conservation and emission reduction. This paper puts forward the evaluation indexes of the results of the building energy consumption prediction model, uses MAPE and RMSE indexes to evaluate the accuracy of the prediction results of the model, and uses the prediction time and input parameter dimensions to evaluate the time cost of the prediction model. Then, using the three building energy consumption prediction models based on machine learning algorithm established above, the prediction of energy consumption of four types of public buildings in different seasons is completed, and the prediction results are evaluated and analyzed. According to the prediction results and the requirements of related work on the accuracy of building energy consumption prediction model, the adaptation relationship between different types of buildings and different machine learning algorithm prediction models is summarized.

ОБЩИЕ ПРИНЦИПЫ ФОРМИРОВАНИЯ АРХИТЕКТУРЫ ТУРИСТИЧЕСКИХ ВИЗИТ-ЦЕНТРОВ ПРИ ЗАГОРОДНЫХ ПАРКАХ

The article discusses the prerequisites for the appearance of a visit center as a new type of public building that implements the functions of tourism. The main types of parks and conditions that make it expedient to create visit centers are highlighted. Functional differences of visit centers from other types of public buildings, which are formed at country parks of various thematic orientation and size, are determined. The functional composition of the visit centers and the nuances of its formation depending on the type of park in which it is created are analyzed. The aspects of the formation of the master plan and improvement of the visit center are given. The dependence of the construction of the functional structure of the visitor center on the seasonality factor characteristic of tourist activity is considered. The classification of business centers according to the parameter of total area and capacity is proposed, considering the features of the functional composition and the specifics of the organization of spaces. The principles of the architectural and planning organization of the centers are determined. Fluctuations in demand for tourist services are determined. The features of its spatial organization and architectural solutions are analyzed and identified. The role of communication spaces and the exploited roof of the center is highlighted as a specific factor in the integration of the building into the natural context. It is advisable to use in the architectural formation of the concept of a visit center.

Energy Refurbishment of Serbian School Building Stock—A Typology Tool Methodology Development

Energy refurbishment of school buildings is a priority regarding both energy consumption in buildings and improving comfort conditions for sensitive young occupants. During 2016–18, a group of teachers and associates from the Faculty of Architecture, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering from the University in Belgrade participated in the project “Energy efficiency in public buildings” in cooperation with GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), University of Belgrade, Faculty of Architecture and Ministry of Mining and Energy of the Republic of Serbia. During 2016 and 2017, a comprehensive survey and database of public buildings were conducted by the local community. The focus of the research was the facilities of children’s institutions, and detailed data were collected to determine the current building stock conditions, energy consumption, and possible improvements. This paper presents the methodology of the project based on defining the typology of buildings, determining the representatives of the characteristic periods of construction, and analyzing their energy performance. Five possible scenarios were considered: designed condition, existing state, and three levels of a building improvement. The main goal of this project was to ascertain the entire fund for school buildings, indicate the potential for energy savings of this type of public building at the national level, and use this as a starting point for developing strategic decisions and further energy efficiency policies. This paper presents the complete results of the research on school buildings in Serbia, their energy performance, and possible energy savings. Key findings show that a great majority of schools are in a poor state in terms of their energy efficiency, but at the same time, there is a large potential for improvement of building envelope, HVAC, and lighting systems, which can cut the current energy need for heating to up to 80%.

An explanatory parametric model to predict comprehensive post-commissioning building performances

Existing building commissioning (EBCx) is a promising approach to save energy and improve indoor environmental quality (IEQ) without sufficient attention yet. However, the uncertainty of building performance post-retrofit leads to a low adoption rate of EBCx, as the commissioning outcomes are dependent on various factors and difficult to model. To facilitate decision-making on EBCx, this paper introduces PECCO, a parametric mathematical model enriched with years of commissioning engineering experience to predict comprehensive EBCx outcomes for various types of public buildings, along with a mobile-based tool to automate the prediction process. An 8-min questionnaire is used to collect building parameters regarding general, management, HVAC, smart system, IEQ, electrical, water supply, and building envelope. Then, a mathematical model predicts commissioning outcomes including energy-saving potential, annual cost saving, asset value increase, comfort-improvement potential, operation risk, commissioning cost, simple payback period, and difficulty in commissioning, and provides overall commissioning strategies, specific commissioning suggestions, and benchmark figures compared with other buildings. Three case studies suggested that PECCO's prediction on the simple payback period achieved a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 15.47%, which is acceptable and comparable to other related studies. By providing various perspectives of information to building owners and managers, PECCO is helpful to foster the industry to undertake EBCx, leading to a more energy-efficient, low-carbon building industry.

Smart Evaluation Index of Roof SHS Suitability

The instability of solar energy and its resource distribution characteristics make it difficult to judge its suitability in practical engineering applications, which hinders its promotion and application. In order to better promote the effective use of solar energy and promote the solar heating system, it is necessary to put forward a simple method of judging the suitability of the solar heating system for engineering application. This study puts forward “F, Q” as the basis for judging the suitability of solar heating systems built on the roof. Two types of public buildings, office buildings and three-star hotels, are taken as the research objects. DeST software is used to change the heating area of the building by superimposing floors to simulate the heat load of the building when the heating area changes. A dynamic simulation coupling model of solar heating system is established in the TRNSYS software to analyze the operating status of the system under all working conditions. The functional relationship between “F, Q” and solar energy guarantee rate is established, and the solar energy contribution rate is divided into three regions of F < 30%, 30% ≤ F ≤ 50%, and F > 50%. The evaluation standard of the building suitability of the solar energy heating system is established according to the scope of “F, Q” in different regions (An office building for, e.g., if the contribution rate of solar heating system is required to be greater than 50%, the “F” of these four areas should be greater than 0.11388, 0.15543, 0.10572, and 0.04511.), and the effectiveness of “F” is verified through actual cases verified by other scholars in the research. The method proposed in this paper is helpful to judge the suitability of solar heating systems in different regions and different types of conventional buildings, so as to better promote solar heating systems.

Parsimonious Modelling for Estimating Hospital Cooling Demand to Improve Energy Efficiency

Abstract Of all the different types of public buildings, hospitals are the biggest energy consumers. Cooling systems for air conditioning and healthcare uses are particularly energy intensive. Forecasting hospital thermal-cooling demand is a remarkable and innovative method capable of improving the overall energy efficiency of an entire cooling system. Predictive models allow users to forecast the activity of water-cooled generators and adapt power generation to the real demand expected for the day ahead, while avoiding inefficient subcooling. In addition, the maintenance costs related to unnecessary starts and stops and power-generator breakdowns occurring over the long term can be reduced. This study is based on the operations of a real hospital facility and details the steps taken to develop an optimal and efficient model based on a genetic methodology that searches for low-complexity models through feature selection, parameter tuning and parsimonious model selection. The methodology, called GAparsimony, has been tested with neural networks, support vector machines and gradient boosting techniques. Finally, a weighted combination of the three best models was created. The new operational method employed herein can be replicated in similar buildings with similar water-cooled generators.

Predicting energy cost of public buildings by artificial neural networks, CART, and random forest

The paper deals with modeling the cost of energy consumed in public buildings by leveraging three machine learning methods: artificial neural networks, CART, and random forest regression trees. Energy consumption is one of the major issues in global and national policies, therefore scientific efforts in creating prediction models of energy consumption and cost are highly important. One of the largest energy consumers in every state is its public sector, consisting of educational, health, public administration, military, and other types of public buildings. Recent technologies based on sensor networks and Big data platforms enable collection of large amounts of data that could be used to analyze energy consumption and cost. A real data from Croatian public sector is used in this paper including a large number of constructional, energetic, occupational, climate and other attributes. The algorithms for data pre-processing and modeling by optimizing parameters are suggested. Three strategies were tested: (1) with all available variables, (2) with a filter-based variable selection, and (3) with a wrapper-based variable selection which integrates Boruta algorithm and random forest. Prediction models of energy cost are created using two approaches: (a) comparative usage of artificial neural networks and two types of regression trees, CART and random forest, and (b) integration of RF-Boruta variable selection and machine learning methods for prediction. A cross-validation procedure was used to optimize the artificial neural network and regression tree topology, as well to select the most appropriate activation function. Along with creating a prediction model, the aim of the paper was also to extract the relevant predictors of energy cost in public buildings which are important in planning the construction or renovation of buildings. The results have shown that the second approach which integrates machine learning with Boruta method, where the random forest algorithm is used for both variable reduction and prediction modeling, has produced a higher accuracy of prediction than the individual usage of three machine learning methods. Such findings confirm the potential of hybrid machine learning methods which are suggested in previous research, but in favor of random forest method over CART and artificial neural networks. Regarding the variable selection, the model has extracted heating and occupational data as the most important, followed by constructional, cooling, electricity, and lighting attributes. The model could be implemented in public buildings information systems and their IoT networks within the concept of smart buildings and smart cities.

Stained Glass and the Victorian Town: Rochdale Library, Museum, and Art Gallery

Between 1850 and 1920 Britain saw an explosion in the use of decorative glazing in all types of public buildings. The enormous impact and significance of decorative glass produced for the palaces of commerce, civic pride, and recreation in cities and towns throughout Britain, with its connotations of opulence and luxury, has so far been largely overlooked. Rochdale, part of Greater Manchester, was a booming industrial town in the nineteenth century due to its cotton industry and became home to much impressive architecture, such as the Rochdale Library, Museum, and Art Gallery (collectively, now Touchstones), originally opened as a public library in 1884. The library contained a wealth of stained glass, now removed, which comprised imagery of significant local and national figures including a window dedicated to women authors. The art gallery and museum still contains glass by the important Manchester firm run by W. J. Pearce, which can be found on the staircase and by the entrance. The combination of mouth-blown and machine-made glasses used in the schemes reveals new ways of thinking about glass in architecture of the period and the role of stained glass as a relevant contemporary art form.<br>

A comparative analysis of urban development and the tram line network in Lviv in 1932−2016

Abstract This article presents a comprehensive analysis of changes in urban development (including certain types of public buildings) and changes in the routes of Lviv’s tram lines over the last 80 years, related to the territorial and demographic development of the city. For this purpose, maps comparing these elements of urban infrastructure between 1932 and 2016 were developed. The analysis was carried out based on a plan of Lviv from 1932, contemporary vector data taken from OpenStreetMap, ArcGIS basemaps, Google Street View panoramic images, information contained in interwar Lviv guides, and supplementary information from other sources.

RAILWAY STATION COMPLEXES OF THE KYIV – KOROSTEN – KOVEL RAILWAY IN THE LATE XIX – EARLY ХХ CENTURY

The relevance of the research topic is determined by the problems associated with maintaining the authenticity of the historic urban environment.Railway construction in the late XIX – early ХХ century was one of the priorities of the state development. There was appeared a new type of public building – the train station, which was usually a multifunctional building. The article describes the preconditions for the emergence of the Kyiv – Korosten – Kovel railway, which gave impetus to the social, economic, engineering, transport, architectural and urban planning development of many settlements of Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Rivne and Volyn regions. Railway station complexes of the Kyiv-Korosten-Kovel railway in the late XIX – early ХХ century are interesting, beautiful, original and unique buildings by their volume-spatial structure. Many of them have the features of ensemble unity. Some of them are built by the typical projects. All of them are valuable objects of architectural heritage, because they reflect the history of the period in the late XIX – early ХХ century. These buildings have features of different styles of architecture, such as: neo-Romanesque, neo-Gothic, neo-Classicism, “brick style”, National Romanticism and wooden architecture. Most of these buildings are preserved to nowadays. It is necessary to give for all these unique buildings the status of architectural monuments, because, unfortunately, only some of them have this status. Railway station complexes of the Kyiv-Korosten-Kovel railway in the late XIX – early ХХ century need a careful attitude to preserve them. The article deals with the compositional features of the Kyiv – Korosten – Kovel railway station complexes in the late XIX – early ХХ century and classifies them by their volume-spatial structure. Much attention is paid to the composition techniques and stylistics of the railway station complexes.

Supermarket as a New Type of Public and Trade Buildings in Design

Supermarket is a new type of public building with commercial purposes that has big space, various goods and self-service. Basic functions: commercial and storage, additional functions: “own manufacture”, catering zones and fun zones. The technology always comes first and determines the whole design project. The recommended ratio of spaces that perform various functions in the supermarket: “consumer, entry zone” - 7-12%; trade and storage zone (retail space) - 55-65%; - warehouse zone - 8-13%; “in-house production” in a food supermarket - 12-16%; “in-house production” in a non-food supermarket - 2-5%; administrative and utility spaces in a food supermarket - 8-20%; administrative and utility spaces in a non-food supermarket - 2-8%. Rectangular buildings of supermarkets with one or two floors in the main building that has storage and warehouse functions. High-shelf storage (higher than 5.5m). Front walls with corporate colours of a chain brand.