Typical Apartment Building Research Articles

Identifying external louver angle for residence opening to optimize the indoor environment for the composite climate of Delhi NCR

The essential part of any shading device is to intercept the solar radiation in such a manner that it allows enough daylight inside the building, while at the same time the indoor thermal comfort is upheld for all the seasons. Earlier studies proved that in comparison with internal shading devices, the external ones minimize the internal heat gain in an effective manner by blocking the radiation, before it reaches the fenestration glazing. However, fixed external shades are incapable of balancing the varying requirements of light and heat for different climatic conditions. Mainly, summer and winter in the composite climate demands adaptive shading solutions as per the changing season. The current study is an attempt to evolve appropriate external adaptive louver shades and recommend louver angles for different months, for a single space of a typical apartment building in Delhi NCR region. The recommended angles allow the occupants to make informed decisions by manually adjusting the louvers to improve the indoor environment. This study utilized ladybug and honeybee plugins for the purpose of simulation. The results show that the monthly adjustments of external adaptive shades enhance the indoor environment and save energy. The study developed, analysed and compared two different types of external adaptive louver shading systems such as EALS (External Adaptive Louver Screen) and EALA (External Adaptive Louver Awning) for better indoor environment and energy saving for west orientation.

Evaluation of renovation strategies: cost-optimal, CO₂e optimal, or total energy optimal?

Currently, building renovation decisions are often driven by immediate investment expenses and short-term energy cost savings, rather than long-term optimisation. The difference between the national carbon footprint (CF) methodologies and the LEVEL(s) framework methodology is significant in relation to the application of energy scenarios. Energy scenarios are created at the national level and are not harmonised. CO2e emission factor of Estonian grid electricity is among the highest in Europe and carbon footprints of Estonian buildings are typically dominated by operational energy use (B6) in Life-Cycle Assessment methodology. Therefore, carbon optimisation leads to better energy performance, than the previous cost-optimal benchmark. The application of the LEVEL(S) methodology would further emphasize the dominance of operational energy stage (B6) in Estonian results and guide towards even higher energy efficiency targets.This study shows, that CF optimal renovation solutions differ from cost-optimal solutions and that CF optimal can be considered a more relevant energy efficiency benchmark for deep renovations, instead of cost optimal. It provides an analysis of different renovation solutions for a typical apartment building renovated in 2021. These solutions were examined using three parameters: life-cycle costs, total energy demand, and CF by applying the Estonian assessment method for the CF of construction works.The results of this case study indicate that the renovation options for both CO₂e optimal end operational energy use (B6) throughout the life cycle provide similar results. The CO₂e optimal solution leads to lower building energy performance indicator level, than conditioned by cost optimal solution.The current increasing energy prices are more substantially supporting solutions with lower CF, as total energy demand is an important economic factor not only in operational energy stage (B6), but also in material production, which was also investigated in this study. The results show that, if operational energy (B6) is excluded, there are significant differences in embodied carbon between the materials used for renovation. Lower carbon footprint renovation strategy involves the usage of pre-fabricated timber frame elements, mineral wool for insulation, wooden cladding or cement fibreboard in the facade. The prevalent External Thermal Insulation Composite System (ETICS) had the highest CF value and maintenance requirements during the building’s lifetime. As the main objective of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive is to drive greenhouse gas reductions, then the steering mechanism should be based on CO2e optimal instead of cost optimal.

Efficiency Possibilities of Energy Management of Apartment Building – Use Case

In this paper we are assessing the aspect of ecological renovation of typical apartment building in Slovakia from energy, ecology and user comfort point of view. For increase in energy efficiency of the building we propose to install photovoltaics on the roof and south facing façade with capacity of 45k Wp, heat pumps for utilization of waste heat from the building's sewage system and waste heat from ventilation shafts with total capacity of 50 kWp, external window shading for east, west and south facing façades, green roof and ceiling cooling for apartment units. The complex renovation represents a positive benefit not only from the user, energy and environmental point of view, but also economical.

Transaction Cost and Agency Perspectives on Eco-Certification of Existing Buildings: A Study of Hong Kong

Eco-certification schemes are usually launched with various incentives provided by local governments to facilitate green building development and building energy retrofits. A number of barriers to building energy retrofitting have been identified in previous literature, while the barriers to the eco-certification of existing buildings are under-researched. Drawing on a set of building data retrievable from the BEAM Society and other sources, we carried out an analysis and found the building energy retrofitting, as well as the certification process, were unwelcomed in multi-owned residential buildings. The identified shortfall is put forward from the perspectives of transaction cost theory and agency theory. The findings reveal that high transaction costs incurred during negotiations and coordination among a large number of co-owners within a typical apartment building can outweigh the benefits of retrofitting and eco-certification. Besides, the remuneration structure of third-party property management agents discourages agents from facilitating co-owners to initiate retrofitting. This study provides significant implications for policymakers to understand the concerns of building owners and managers over the decisions and the processes of both the building energy retrofits and eco-certification. The problems and barriers unveiled in this study will facilitate the refining of current energy efficiency policies and related incentives designs.

Potential of cross-ventilation channels in an ideal typical apartment building predicted by CFD and multi-zone airflow model

Natural ventilation is a passive environmental technology which can improve indoor air quality and cool down the building without consuming energy. However, due to the increasing densities of cities, land prices are constantly increasing. To save building area, apartment houses often use one elevator hall for multiple households (i.e. three-, four-, six-, or eight-households). But when an apartment is on the leeward side, the wind pressure ventilation is low. Therefore, this study proposes establishing a horizontal airflow channel—cross-ventilation channel—in the elevator hall to improve air exchange rate. The paper aim to predict its effect. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation verified by wind tunnel test, and the multi-zone airflow model are applied to predict the air flow rates in seven cities in China, which represented the five climate zones of China. It is found that the horizontal airflow channel can obviously improve the ventilation capacity of the leeward apartment, especially for south-side apartment. The area ratio of channel-to-ground increases by 1%, and the ventilation rate increases by average 5% in this study. It could be used as an alternative technology for improving natural ventilation in apartment buildings.

Eastern sources in European architecture and Art at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries and modern tendencies

Aim. The article investigated the influence of Eastern cultures (Chinese, Japanese) on the style of European Аrt nouveau and the Historicism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Methodology. Used the scientific methods of historic analyze and comparative analyze. Results. Argued, that the fascination of Western European civilization with Eastern cultures began at the end of the seventeenth century — first it was a total fascination with Chinese culture, and from the middle of the nineteenth century — Japanese and Moorish, Arabic, Persian. It is argued that the popularization of Eastern cultures among the Western European community was facilitated by the publication of historical novels on ancient Egypt, the Middle Ages, and the Arab East. Through artistic works, admiration for exotic cultures spread to architecture, design, and décor elements. Particular attention was paid to the stylistic specificity of European architecture and Art at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.Scientific novelty. Such as argued, it is proved that the fascination with Chinese and Chinese traditions felt concentrated until the second half of the nineteenth century, when due to archeological excavations of Troy, excavations in Egypt, the opening of the world of Japan and the establishment of trade, it somewhat weakened, giving way to the Japanese and Asian influences, and to the influences of old Romanesque architecture. At the same time, there is a certain combination of Chinese and Japanese influences in Historicism and Art nouveau, which is especially noticeable in decoration. It is cited as evidence of the fascination of Chinese traditions at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with the erection of a China-style Perlov Tea Shop in Moscow in 1890, combining the structure of a typical apartment building and elements of traditional Chinese architecture.Practical significance. As results argued, that despite the change of dynasties, traditional architecture remained quite conservative, that is, we can talk about China’s inherent continuity of architectural and artistic traditions. The definitive symbols by which ancient Chinese architecture is known in the world are the following: the typical silhouettes of buildings with traditional concave roofs covered with tiling; the application of polychrome decorated supports, screens; over-saturation with details; the widespread use of complex-shaped carving, the symbolic significance of the mural plots, traditions of which are from prehistoric times, and even polychromy, where each colour had a particular meaning (the main colours were red, gold, blue, green and white). That’s open the road for using this principles in modern Chinese design.

Quantification of Air Change Rate by Selected Methods in a Typical Apartment Building

An important parameter that affects indoor climate of buildings and also ventilation heat losses and gains is the speed of air change between the outdoor environment and the interior of buildings. Indoor air quality is therefore significantly associated with ventilation. Quantification of air change rate is complicated, because it is impacted by many parameters, the most variable of which is air flow. This study focuses on the determination and comparison of air change rate values in two methods by quantification of the aerodynamic coefficient Cp = Cpe − Cpi, so-called “aerodynamic quantification of the building” and the methodology based on “experimental measurements of carbon dioxide”. The study describes and takes into account the effect of wind, building parameters and air permeability for the building using “aerodynamic quantification of the building”. The paper compares these calculated results with the values obtained from experimental measurements method of carbon dioxide in a selected reference room in apartment building and evaluates the accuracy of the prediction of the air exchange rate obtained by these methods. At higher wind speeds the values of air change rate with considering the effect of openings are closer to the values obtained based on experimental measurements of carbon dioxide and the difference between the values without considering the effect of openings increases significantly.

Improving the energy efficiency of existing residential buildings by applying passive and cost-effective solutions in the Hot and humid region of Iran

This paper aims to investigate the improvement of the energy efficiency of typical apartment buildings in the hot and humid region of Iran by applying passive and cost-effective solutions. For this purpose, a residential building, that reflects the current typology, is selected in Bushehr, Iran, and its annual energy consumption is explored using electric and gas bills. Then, a primary and calibrated model of the building is made using a real occupancy schedule and hourly weather data of Bushehr in Design Builder Software to simulate its energy performance. Considering the architectural design of the baseline model and using passive solutions (including low-E glazing, thermal insulation of external walls, roof and ceilings, and pre-heating of domestic hot water), a developed model is made. The simulation results indicate that the annual carbon dioxide emission and energy consumption of the developed model is reduced by 18.7% and 20%, respectively. These passive solutions can be used to improve the energy efficiency of existing buildings to achieve low Carbon buildings and neighborhoods in this part of Iran. This study also proposed a new reference for the annual energy consumption of low-energy houses in the hot and humid area of Iran and the Persian Gulf region (75-76 kWh/m2/Year). Moreover, the economic analysis in this study demonstrates that the above-mentioned passive solutions will be cost-effective if the government subsidies for the residential buildings’ energy use are eliminated in this region.

Environmental life cycle costing at the early stage for supporting cost optimization of precast concrete panel for energy renovation of existing buildings

Around 35% of the buildings in Europe are over 50 years old and almost 75% of the building stock is energy-inefficient. A European project VEEP is developing an innovative prefabricated concrete element (PCE) system to improve the thermal performance of new buildings (PCE1) and old buildings (PCE2). This study focused on retrofitting of old buildings via over-cladding of the building envelope with PCE2. This study aims to from a building owner/consumer's perspective to explore the life cycle economic performance of the PCE2 system at an early stage and associated cost optimization strategies under the European context. This study tries to answer four questions: 1) whether the use of the PCE2 leads to an economic advantage over a specific life cycle of an existing building. 2) what is the biggest cost stressor in the life cycle of a PCE2? 3) the potential route for further cost optimization. and 4) how would the discount rate affect the life cycle costs, especially when Europe has entered a negative rate age? A typical apartment building in the Netherlands is selected as the case study for dynamic thermal simulation, in which the heating and cooling energy demands before and after refurbishment with PCE2 will be evaluated. By employing environmental life cycle costing (LCC), the life cycle costs over 40 years and associated strategy for cost optimization were investigated. This research not only unveils meaningful financial implications on resource-efficient building energy renovation in Europe but also provides insight on methodological dilemmas within the application of LCC.

The The Industrial Colony of Belišće

Gutmann’s company became involved with industrial wood processing in the mid-19th century, due to the demand for railroad ties for the purpose of building a railway network in the post-revolutionary Habsburg Monarchy. In the wood processing business, the company would hold its steady place word for almost a century, until the Ustasha regime and then the Communist government put an end to its tradition. Its fate was finally sealed in 1946 by the District People’s Court in Zagreb. Belišće was founded in 1884 and within a few years acquired the form of an industrial settlement with factory facilities, warehouses, administrative buildings, cultural centres, and typical apartment buildings. By the end of the interwar period, Belišće had the population of a smaller urban settlement, with a post office serving a number of surrounding villages, factories, a port on the river Drava, and a railway network as a starting point in connecting Slavonia-Podravina with the foot of Mount Papuk in Voćin.Gutmann’s industrial plants, infrastructure and workers were the backbone of a successful family business, which consequently built the township of Belišće.

Determinants of the housing engineering entrepreneurship

Current specifics of entrepreneurship in the field of apartment buildings construction (AB) and the impact of modern financing rules set on it, written in the relevant Federal Law are highlighted in the article. The purpose of the discussion is to develop the method foundations for analyzing the financial boundaries of housing (MFAFBH). The author’s opinion is based on the results of monitoring facts and expert opinions, texts’ analysis of normative acts, averaged requirements of banks for AB projects, methods of equivalent mathematical transformations, calculations according to special dynamic financial models of AB projects (MFPAB), principles of financial decision-making, laws of the primary market real estate (PRMRE), conjuncture of the Novosibirsk PRMRE. The fundamentals of MFAFBH were developed, the MFPAB was compiled for one of the typical apartment buildings in Novosibirsk, the boundary price of housing under construction was calculated, below this prize any AB project could not receive funding, i.e. construction would be impossible. The MFAFBH proposed by the author, can be applied to any region of the country, to forecast housing construction volumes on its basis, to develop and take measures, to manage this field of activity.

The influence of heat loss from pipes in an unheated basement on the heating energy consumption of an entire typical apartment building

The majority of old apartment buildings were designed with an unheated basement. Building service systems such as district heating heat exchangers and pipes for domestic hot water and for space heating are usually located in this unheated basement. In addition, these locations are connected with shafts. All these pipe’s heat losses increase air temperature in the basement. If these losses are included into the building energy balance, then they decrease heat loss through the basement ceiling. The basement’s heat balance is also dependent on heat loss from the basement envelope and outdoor air exchange in the basement. In early stages of design, designers and energy auditors need rough models to make decisions in limited information conditions. Once the effects of heat losses from pipes become apparent, they need to be factored into the buildings energy balance, and their effects on heat loss through the basement ceiling needs to be calculated. In this paper we analyse the effect these heat losses have on the service system’s heat gains and heat loss through an uninsulated basement ceiling at different basement insulation levels and with different thicknesses of pipe insulation. From our study we found that pipe losses in the basement increase the building energy performance value by at least 4 kWh/(m²∙a) and their impact on a renovated apartment building is very important.

Measuring embodied CO2 emission in construction materials in Kosovo apartments

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to quantify the carbon emissions emitted by two different typical apartment units representative of two different construction periods in Kosovo due to main construction materials as a consequence of embodied energy. Design/methodology/approach The present study uses a three-step (bottom-up) process-based life cycle analysis of the construction material set for two different apartment units. The current study uses material analysis. Embodied CO2 is estimated by multiplying material masses with the corresponding ECO2 coefficients (kg CO2/kg). Due to the lack of a comprehensive Kosovo database, data from an international database are utilized. The results provide practical baseline indicators for the contribution of each material in terms of mass and embodied CO2. Findings Results of quantitative research find that apartment unit representative of the old communist-era construction produces 50 percent more embodied CO2 emissions than an apartment unit that is representative of modern construction in Kosovo. The study finds that this difference comes mainly because of the utilization of larger quantities of steel, concrete, and precast fabricated concrete in the apartment unit that is representative of the old communist era. Research limitations/implications The calculation of embodied CO2 emissions for major construction materials in typical apartments in Kosovo can help in the development of national databases in the future. The availability of such databases could help the construction industry in Kosovo to open up to new sustainable design approaches since such databases and evaluations performed in the national context in Kosovo could help the builders in selecting, assessing and using environmentally friendly materials during the design or refurbishment stage of a building. Originality/value This paper is the first investigation of the embodied carbon emission in two different typical apartment building structures in Kosovo.

Load Profile of Typical Residential Buildings in Bulgaria

In the current market design, the increasing use of renewable energy sources for electricity generation leads to new challenges in balancing supply and demand. While households are responsible for 29% of total electricity demand in Europe, a good understanding of their consumption and load profiles is missing. Households have become one of the most crucial factors shaping the management of developments towards sustainability. The development and implementation of effective policies for promoting energy efficiency in the household sector has been an emerging target of the EU. Recent analyses of Bulgarian households show this type of housing as the most statistically significant variable to impact electricity savings. This study deals with the statistical analysis of electric consumption. Statistical evaluations of electricity consumption in a typical apartment building have been obtained in the research. Mathematical models of the investigated loads have been developed. The research is based on the periodic results and the object of investigation is a typical residential block of flats in Ruse, Bulgaria. The average daily energy consumption during the weekdays and weekends is presented and analysed in the paper.

THE PECULIARITIES OF THERMAL INDUCEMENT VENTILATION SYSTEMS

Introduction. For increasing the efficiency of natural ventilation systems, it is possible to use the thermal incentives - additional heating of the exhaust ventilation duct, which allows to expand temperature difference between ambient and exhaust air and to increase the circulation effect. This method enables stable air exchange in hot period, independently of the wind direction force. However, existing systems have several limitations of application in the high-rise apartment building in countries with a cold climate. The aim of the study is to develop a thermal inducement ventilation systems, suitable for typical residential apartment buildings in russian climate. Results. The article theoretically proves the disadvantages of existing thermal inducement ventilation systems. The article also presents the results of numerical modeling of natural convection currents in the high-rise apartment building. The dependence of outlet velocity on temperature difference for various heating methods is proved on the basis of the research. Conclusion. The results of the research illustrate the high level of the heating area location influence on free convection currents in vent duct.

Investigating Energy-Related Occupants' Behaviors on Energy Consumption in Residential Buildings (Opening/Closing Windows and Blinds)

Considering the high energy consumption in the building sector, there are several ways to improve energy consumption, part of which is technology-related and partly related to the performance of the people, given that the human segment is much easier and cheaper than the technology sector., The optimal use of these energy-driven behaviors can greatly help improve indoor comfort and reduce energy consumption in the building. In this research, the effects of changes in the energy-oriented behavior pattern (opening and closing of the window and curtain) on the cooling load and power consumption are reviewed annually in a common building. Building simulation was done using the Designer Bidder software. It was found that the use of a proper behavior pattern could reduce the percentage of energy consumption (electricity for cooling). After choosing a residential building in the Gonbad-e-Kavos, a typical apartment building in the city, simulations have been carried out in three modes, and the cooling and electricity consumption (purely for cooling) models are compared in one year. In the simulated model, the third state behavioral model was more favorable in terms of reducing cooling load and power consumption in one year. The results of this simulation show that a change in behavior patterns can make a significant change in its energy consumption. Energy-efficient behaviors have a very high potential for optimizing energy consumption in buildings along with other engineering and technical solutions.

Shake-Table Response of a Coupled RC Wall with Thin T-Shaped Piers

AbstractA shake-table test of a 1:3 scale model of a thin, lightly reinforced concrete (RC), 5-story coupled wall, representing a typical apartment building with a high wall-to-floor area ratio, wa...

Vertical segregation: Mapping the vertical social stratification of residents in Athenian apartment buildings

This paper is about vertical segregation in Athens and the ways it has evolved up to the early 2010s. Vertical segregation refers to social stratification by floor of residence in the typical apartment building that dominates the city’s housing stock. Unlike its Parisian precedent, vertical segregation in Athens was developed much more recently (third quarter of the 20th Century), its social hierarchy is in the opposite direction (wealthier households occupy the higher rather than the lower floors) and its importance is not marginal, since it affects more than a fifth of the metropolitan population.Mapping vertical segregation is a challenge since the different groups –social or ethnic– are located the one on top of the other. Ordinary segregation mapping depicts the areas of vertical segregation as mixed areas, but provides no indication on whether they are simply mixed or their population is also vertically stratified according to class or ethnicity. The paper introduces a mapping technique to overcome this difficulty.

Simplified dynamic neural network model to predict heating load of a building using Taguchi method

Prediction of heating and cooling loads is necessary for building design and HVAC system operation, in order to reduce energy consumption. This study intended to develop a method for the prediction of the instantaneous building energy load, depending on various combinations of input parameters using a dynamic neural network model. The heating load was calculated for a typical apartment building in Seoul for a one-month period in winter using the Energy-Plus software. The data sets obtained were used to train neural network models. The input parameters included dry-bulb temperature, dew point temperature, direct normal radiation, diffuse horizontal radiation, and wind speed. The Taguchi method was applied to investigate the effect of the individual input parameters on the heating load. It was found that the outdoor temperature and wind speed are the most influential parameters, and that the dynamic model provides better results, as compared with the static model. Optimized system parameters, such as number of tapped delay lines and number of hidden neurons, were obtained for the present application. The results of this study show that Taguchi method can successfully reduce number of input parameters. Moreover dynamic neural network model can predict precisely instantaneous heating loads using a reduced number of inputs.

The air emission assessment of a South Korean apartment building's life cycle, along with environmental impact

In South Korea, 86.4% of residential buildings are apartment buildings. A typical apartment building generates a significant amount of air emissions during its life cycle, from building material production, construction, operation, and demolition, to recycling and disposal, along with transportation activities at two stages. In order to measure the life cycle air emission production of an apartment building, this study assesses seven types of air emissions and then demonstrates the application of the proposed methodology to a recently constructed apartment building in Busan, South Korea. The results of the study indicate that a proto-typical 25-storey apartment building produces 10,642,215.14 kg of CO2, 326,393.29 kg of CO, 9401.8 kg of CH4, 8444.57 kg of NOX, 2877.47 kg of SO2, 603.95 kg of NMVOC, and 27.05 kg of N2O during its entire life cycle. In addition, this study assesses the environmental impact of apartment building materials, using the life cycle assessment software tool Gabi. From the environmental impact analysis and the carbon footprint analysis, it is found that the steel and concrete have the largest influence on global warming potential, acidification potential, and eutrophication potential.