Buildings envelope anomalies: A visual survey methodology

The early deterioration of social housing envelopes reflect their low durability. An evaluation methodology to estimate social housing envelope degradation level was developed which has been applied to a set of social housing. Following this study, the methodology revealed adequate for any sort of buildings, taking into account their specific features that necessitate some methodology modifications. To support the visual survey of the external building envelope, tables applying the Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) were used to analyse the principal causes and effects of the anomalies identified. To evaluate the main visible anomalies on their external envelope, two evaluation scales have been created: one for the degradation degree applicable to each typified anomaly and the other for the performance level of each building respect to a set of functional requirements. The degradation level of each of the principal anomalies was determined as well as the evaluation index of the building envelope. Degradation evaluation results were obtained through visual survey and were aggregated by two methods developed for the research: one based on the Hermione aggregation method and the other on the results of the inquiry to tenants based on a multi-attribute analysis attending to the relatively importance (weight) of the evaluated requirements. Each attributed weight was obtained throughout the expressed opinion of technicians and specialists from the construction sector.The aim of this paper is to present the visual survey methodology of the envelope degradation level and the results obtained for the degradation degree of each typified anomaly, and the performance level of each building in respect of a set of functional requirements.     

Occupants' migration in residential buildings towards comfort and energy efficiency (case of traditional residential architecture in Iran)

Recently, the role of occupants' behaviors on building energy efficiency has been much more taken into account. Occupants' migration on a building scale is a phrase on which this article focuses as one of the best occupants' responses to the climate condition for comfort and energy efficiency in traditional architecture. This paper attempts to step towards recovering the role of traditional adaptive occupants in contemporary buildings for comfort and energy efficiency. To this end, this study aimed to achieve the following objectives: (1) to summarize the socio-environmental and psychological elements of traditional housing that help occupants migrate in a building for their needs, comfort, and energy efficiency. (2) to reveal the interrelated factors affecting occupants' migration in building scale for comfort and energy efficiency. (3) to present types of occupant migration in buildings for comfort and energy efficiency. In order to achieve the objectives of this study, first, a literature review was conducted on the socio-environmental and psychological elements of traditional housing that help occupants migrate in a building for their needs, comfort, and energy efficiency. Also, the interrelated factors affecting occupants' migration in buildings and the types of occupant migration in building for comfort and energy efficiency were considered via both content analysis of available literature, and field survey methodologies. Besides, a comparison is made between the traditional style of housing and migration and the new style. Finally, the results showed that psychological, environmental, and social factors not only motivated people to move around to survive; achieve more thermal, visual, and mental comfort; but also contributed to more environmentally friendly spaces, which ultimately provide people with health, well-being, and energy efficiency. These movements and their associated contributing architectural elements were interrelated and affected one another in mutual respect. People underwent these movements in vertical and horizontal directions for their needs and energy efficiency because the space potentials provided incentives for them to do so.

     

Study on building plan for enhancing the social health of public apartments

Mass-produced in a short period of time, Korea's public apartments contributed to easing the housing anxiety of the common people. Nonetheless, they also gave rise to problems of social exclusion and conflict, becoming undesirable facilities that weakened social health. This study examined ways of producing an improved building plan that can raise the level of social health of public apartments, which were consistently built in the past but will no doubt continue to be developed in the future. For this study, the survey method was employed through a questionnaire with visual contents especially developed to raise the level of social health based on two ideas. One was to increase the possibility of social interaction among residents, and the other was to increase opportunities for residents to interact with society as well as for their social integration. The results showed that residents had mostly favorable views on the proposed plans: in particular, they favored highly the formation of a lobby in each apartment building as a venue for social interaction. They also responded very favorably to the plan of creating within the buildings spare space that will be used not only to promote a communal culture, but to open to outside society as well for integration. This study showed vital ideas to ensure the recovery of the residential function of promoting social health in the public apartments of Korea. It has significance in inspiring an innovative approach to allow social mixture in a relatively different feasible manner from the conventional approach.     

Housing as a Social Integration Factor for People Classified as Mentally Ill

There are four housing models designed for de-institutionalized patients: custodial housing, supportive housing, supported housing and autonomous housing. The first two models can be considered as forms of residential accommodations (forms that provide security yet de-emphasize the importance of individuals' autonomy) because of the familiarity they maintain with hospital-type care. The other two housing models bear a greater resemblance to apartment-type resources (which further individuals' autonomy, but pose a risk of isolation). This study sheds light on the perception of people using mental health services regarding their quality of life and degree of empowerment in relation to these various types of housing. Twenty-one Montrealers were interviewed who were grappling with mental illness and are living in the four types of housing resources. One of the findings of this study is that access to suitable housing is a primary source of social integration. However, new housing models with social support must be developed that further each person's autonomy as well as security.     

CHALLENGING THE THIRD SECTOR HOUSING APPROACH: The Impact of Federal Policies (1980–1996)

ABSTRACT: Recent third sector housing research contends that community-based housing organizations can successfully balance social and financial objectives by simultaneously involving and building communities while developing and managing long-term affordable housing. This article analyzes the impact of the federal housing policies of the 1980s and 1990s on the ability of community-based housing organizations to meet this “double bottom line” (Bratt et al, 1994). It builds upon Salomon's (1989; 1993) thesis that an increased commercialization and marketization of the nonprofit sector occurred in response to the post-1980 federal social policies by arguing further that such a commercialization threatens the nonprofits' ability to prioritize standards of participation, neighborhood control, community building, and long-term affordability. I argue that federal housing policies need to be more closely allied with these standards in order to ensure their long-term viability.     

Story-specific demand models and seismic fragility estimates for multi-story buildings

This paper develops seismic demand models for multi-story buildings. Story-specific demand models that consider the maximum interstory drift of each story are developed. Correlations among individual story demand models are also assessed to properly capture the potential dependence between maximum interstory drifts over the height of a building. Both linear and bilinear models in logarithmic space are considered to describe the relationships between drift demand and seismic intensity. A Bayesian approach is used to estimate the model parameters. The developed demand models are used to estimate the seismic fragility of two example buildings. The fragility estimates are compared with currently available estimates based on demand models for the overall maximum interstory drift. It is shown that when only the maximum interstory drift of a building is considered, the fragility might be underestimated; particularly if the interstory drifts for one or more stories are close to the maximum value. The proposed methodology provides a refined approach that includes more building response information than typical demand models, allowing for more accurate estimates of the seismic fragility of multi-story buildings.     

Self-help Housing in the Weimar Republic: The Work of Ernst May

This paper examines the work of the architect Ernst May with regard to self-build housing initiatives during the Weimar Republic (1918-33).Among the many attempts to assuage the housing shortage in early 20th-century Germany, self-build housing initiatives were the last resort, emerging only in times of dire economic crisis. During the hyper-inflation years from 1919 through to 1924 and then with the onset of the world depression in 1930, the state encouraged housing authorities to develop self-build strategies, along with experimentsin 'recovered' vernacular building materials and techniques. This paper examines the work of the architect Ernst May with regard to these initiatives. May's career is unique in its productivity,in the inventiveness of his strategies and the relentlessness with which he pursued economising measures. At the same time, it is typical in the types of self-build experiments he developed to deal with the crisis. Further, the paper traces through May's career the formative impact of the political and social context that shaped and delimited the building programme, its meaning and ultimate utility to society self-build programmes in the Weimar years.     

钢结构在住宅建筑中的应用优势及展望

在国家大力发展钢结构和装配式建筑的政策背景下,我国钢结构发展十分迅速,钢结构住宅作为一种绿色环保建筑,已被住建部列为重点推广项目。本文通过研究装配式钢结构住宅的概念、国内外装配式住宅的发展情况,结合近年来本公司在装配式住宅,特别是钢结构住宅项目的实际经验进行分析对比,阐述了钢结构在住宅建筑中的应用优势。尽管目前装配式钢结构住宅建筑仍面临问题与挑战,但随着科技的不断进步,新型材料将越来越广泛地应用于住宅建筑中,相关技术难题也会被逐个解决,钢结构住宅仍然是未来住宅建筑发展的理想形式。     

The evolution of prefabricated residential building systems in Hong Kong: A review of the public and the private sector

Prefabricated building components have been adopted in Hong Kong for over two decades for high-rise buildings. In the public sector, prefabrication together with standard modular design was introduced in the Housing Authority's public housing projects in the mid-1980s. Over the years, precasting techniques have significantly evolved in public housing projects. In contrast, prefabrication has only recently been adopted in the private sector. The aim of this paper is to examine the evolution of precasting technology in high-rise residential developments in Hong Kong, and then explore the technological influences in both sectors. A database of 179 prefabricated residential buildings was developed and detailed case studies of five residential developments were conducted. The findings revealed that a greater extent of prefabrication use over the years, in terms of precasting percentage by volume and types of precast elements utilised. Major prefabrication innovations, in both sectors, influenced the technological advancement in prefabrication in Hong Kong.     

Vacant residential buildings as potential reserves: a geographical and statistical study

Vacant housing has been associated with a variety of interests from economic implications and consequences for the urban structure to the possibility of providing housing for the homeless. In addition to these social and financial aspects, unused buildings have resources embedded in them. They take land from other activities and contain refined natural resources in the form of building components and materials. Therefore, empty buildings can be regarded as reserves for housing and repositories for urban mining, i.e. material extraction. In doing so, these buildings contribute to the resilience of cities. This geographical and statistical study on residential vacancies is situated in Finland, where empty homes may also keep using energy and producing emissions. The research material consists of a vast dataset of all residential buildings with vacancies in Finland in mid-2014, a total of 275 486 buildings with 1 100 267 occupied and 378 802 unoccupied dwellings (52% of the Finnish housing stock). The paper shows several characteristics that increase the understanding of vacancies and their role in the dynamics of the building stock. Public policy should address the issue of vacancy, not only because of social and economic implications but also because of its environmental impacts and opportunities.     

城市住宅节能技术的优化探讨

根据国务院部署大力发展节能省地型建筑,建设节约型社会的要求,全面实施建筑节能50%设计标准,进而推动城市节能65%标准的实施。目前,我国大部分城市正在制订或者已经执行居住建筑节能65%的标准。如何将建筑的性能化节能指标转化为围护结构的热工性能指标,需要对节能50%设计标准的住宅热工性能现状进行分析总结,才有可能在技术上找到合理地提高住宅节能水平的设计方法。结合近年来西安市住宅围护结构的构造做法和热工性能,其节能指标与节能50%、节能65%标准的比较,找出目前住宅的热工性能指标与新标准的差距。据此提出应优先采用高效节能保温窗;墙体保温材料的选择要综合考虑保温层的特点、造价等因素;同时,对于因抗震设计而产生的热桥影响应引起高度重视,以寻求新的构造方式加强热桥部位的保温。     

基于健康照明的老年住宅光环境设计

随着我国老年人口的快速增长,我国人口老龄化形势严峻。现代健康光环境设计不仅要考虑人的视觉需求,还需要考虑人体内在的昼夜节律。由于视觉性能下降,生理及心理变化,导致老年人对光环境的要求特殊。我国现有老年住宅的光环境设计还处于起步阶段。研究有利于老年人健康的光环境设计非常重要。尝试通过从建筑室内光环境的角度分析老年人视觉舒适、心理情绪及生理节律等问题。通过分析国内外相关领域研究成果,总结出老年人健康照明的特点,并为老年住宅光环境设计提供一些建议。     

Building typologies as a tool for assessing the energy performance of residential buildings - A case study for the Hellenic building stock

Successful strategies towards minimizing the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions attributed to the building sector require knowledge on the energy-related characteristics of the existing building stock. Despite the numerous studies on energy conservation applications in buildings, current knowledge on the energy-related characteristics of the building stock still remains limited. Building typologies can be a useful instrument to facilitate the energy performance assessment of a building stock. This work is based on a harmonised structure for European building typologies (TABULA) developed for residential buildings, but the methodology may be extended to the tertiary sector as well. National typologies are sets of model buildings with characteristic energy-related properties representative of a country's building stock. The model buildings are used as a showcase for demonstrating the energy performance and the potential energy savings from typical and advanced energy conservation measures (ECMs) on the thermal envelope and the heat supply system. The proposed Hellenic residential building typology is presented for the first time along with an assessment of various ECMs that are used for an estimate of the energy performance of building stock in Greece in an effort to meet the 9% indicative national energy savings target by 2016.     

Overheating in English dwellings: comparing modelled and monitored large-scale datasets

ABSTRACT

Monitoring and modelling studies of the indoor environment indicate that there are often discrepancies between simulation results and measurements. The availability of large monitoring datasets of domestic buildings allows for more rigorous validation of the performance of building simulation models derived from limited building information, backed by statistical significance tests and goodness-of-fit metrics. These datasets also offer the opportunity to test modelling assumptions. This paper investigates the performance of domestic housing models using EnergyPlus software to predict maximum daily indoor temperatures over the summer of 2011. Monitored maximum daily indoor temperatures from the English Housing Survey’s (EHS) Energy Follow-Up Survey (EFUS) for 823 nationally representative dwellings are compared against predictions made by EnergyPlus simulations. Due to lack of information on the characteristics of individual dwellings, the models struggle to predict maximum temperatures in individual dwellings and performance was worse on days when the outdoor maximum temperatures were high. This research indicates that unknown factors such as building characteristics, occupant behaviour and local environment makes the validation of models for individual dwellings a challenging task. The models did, however, provide an improved estimate of temperature exposure when aggregated over dwellings within a particular region.     

BuildingsLife: a building management system

The financial resources available for infrastructure maintenance and rehabilitation are always limited, which creates a need for efficient resources' management and for the ability to predict maintenance actions throughout the infrastructure's service life. In the context of bridges, management systems have been developed and are already implemented around the world. A much larger variety of maintenance problems and a reduced number of buildings per owner mean that building management systems (BdMSs) are still quite rare. Actually, efficient methods for the service life prediction of building materials still need to be developed. This paper discusses the service life prediction methods used in building components based on deterministic, stochastic or engineering methods. The architecture of a recently developed BdMS – BuildingsLife – is presented, where the service life analysis of components is based on an initial statistical analysis of anomalies obtained from the inspection of in-use buildings. This method analyses the corresponding degradation through the use of deterministic and stochastic models.     

Occupants have little influence on the overall energy consumption in district heated apartment buildings

The purpose of this research is twofold: first, to evaluate how occupant behavior in a neutral environment influences the overall greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption of multi-family apartment buildings, and second: to establish which activities associated with housing companies produce the most greenhouse gas emissions. The research comprised of a multiple cases of housing companies dating from the late 1960s and located in the Finnish capital Helsinki. The studied housing companies represent the least energy efficient third of the Finnish residential building stock, approaching obligatory large scale refurbishments. The analysis is conducted in two phases with a so called hybrid life-cycle assessment (LCA) technique. Using the technique, both economic and metric consumption data are analyzed to estimate the greenhouse gas emissions generated by activities associated with housing. In line with previous research, the study identifies heating energy as the single most significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The results also show that the carbon load associated with housing activities makes up one third of an individual resident's overall carbon footprint. Contrary to often stated belief, the study indicates that occupant behavior has only limited effect on the energy consumption and, consequently, carbon emissions derived from housing, particularly when multi-family housing connected to district heating is concerned. However, apartment size seems to have a two-way impact, the smallest and the largest being the least energy efficient.     

Lighter Living in the 21st Century: FjordParken Himmerland and Marina Fjordparken,Egholm, Denmark

Jane Briginshaw visits a housing scheme in northern Jutland, where the use of timber has tackled concrete's stranglehold over the Danish building industry. A mixed-used scheme, providing social housing and provision for a local cooperative of the marina's sailing-club members, it caters in its internal planning to occupants' needs. Despite being architecturally accomplished, is its cool anonymity devoid of the ‘wow’ factor that Brits are starting to expect from newbuild? Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of social sustainability in building assessment

ABSTRACT

Can social sustainability be built? What are the challenges and potential for incorporating the concept of social sustainability into the assessment of building projects? Theoretical approaches to social sustainability are examined for the ways it is applied in practice by building industry stakeholders. A fundamental question is whether and how social sustainability can be measured, assessed and certified in the construction or renewal of housing and neighbourhoods. In addition to physical and functional indicators, it is suggested that certification systems (e.g. the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen – DGNB) should also reward social initiatives. A framework was developed involving 12 indicators grouped three overarching themes: social cohesion; participatory processes; and accessibility to living opportunities. A collaborative case study project involving two Danish social housing neighbourhoods examines how social sustainability indicators could be integrated into the application of certification systems such as the DGNB and whether the certification system can be improved by integrating social and organizational aspects with the existing criteria for physical and functional layout. It is found that certifications must take the housing complex or neighbourhood's relationship with the surrounding city into account, as well as its development over time and flexibility towards future needs.     

Integrating building information modelling with sustainability to design building projects at the conceptual stage

Lately the construction industry has become more interested in designing and constructing environmentally friendly buildings (e.g. sustainable buildings) that can provide both high performance and monetary savings. In general, sustainability integrates the following three related components: (1) environmental, (2) economic, (3) social well-being. Incorporating these components at the conceptual stage is achieved by using sustainable design, through which designers must identify associated materials and systems based on any selected certification (rating) system. The use of building information modelling (BIM) concepts helps engineers design digital models that allow owners to visualize the building before the physical implementation takes place. To apply BIM concepts, designers use tools to create 3D models of buildings where the design materials and systems are selected from the built-in database of these tools. Designers will not be able to quantify the environmental impacts of these materials to support the decisions needed to design sustainable buildings due to the following reasons: (1) a lack of information about the sustainable materials that are stored in the database, (2) a lack of interoperability between the design and analysis tools that enable full life cycle assessments (LCAs) of buildings. This paper presents a methodology that integrates BIM and LCA tools with a database for designing sustainable building projects. The methodology describes the development and implementation of a model that incorporates a database in which information about sustainable materials is stored and linked to a BIM (3D) module along with an LCA module and a certification and cost module. The goal of this model is to simplify the process of creating sustainable designs and to evaluate the environmental impacts (EI) of newly designed buildings at the conceptual stage of their life. An actual building project is presented in order to illustrate the usefulness and capabilities of the developed model.     

Framed Buildings of England

Abstract

It has been suggested that the present concentration on archaeological studies of traditional buildings might benefit from the work of social and economic historians. This article therefore examines accounts for the enlargement of one Cumbrian farm building in 1739-40. The source, price and use of most building materials, the organization of work and even the identity of work men become clear. Aspects of ownership, local geology, transportation and other buildings are discussed. Though the building was demolished in about 1970 and the internal arrangement is uncertain, the accounts provide a remarkable insight into farm building construction work during Cumbria's 'Great Rebuilding'.