2017 March - 26 articles
The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) 2010 calls for the Nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB) Standard for new buildings from 2021 onwards: Buildings using “almost no energy” are powered by renewable sources or by the energy produced by...
This paper aims to outline the application of Fuzzy Logic in real estate investment. In literature, there is a wide theoretical background on real estate investment decisions, but there has been a lack of empirical support in this regard. For this re...
There has often been a mutually beneficial relationship between cities and their rural hinterlands. The Kapiti region outside the city of Wellington in New Zealand is a prime example: it once provided Wellington’s food, water and cultural diversity f...
The objective of this study is to investigate the climate characteristics of Indonesian regions using an Olgyay Bioclimatic chart, a Givoni–Milne Bioclimatic chart and a Mahoney Table as the pre‐design stage in the development of a passive house desi...
Complex fenestration systems typically comprise co-planar, clear and scattering layers. As there are many ways to combine layers in fenestration systems, a common approach in building simulation is to store optical properties separate for each layer....
This paper presents an ecosystem biomimicry methodology for urban design called ecosystem service analysis. Ecosystem services analysis can provide quantifiable goals for urban ecological regeneration that are determined by site specific ecology and...
Major problems worldwide are environmental concern and energy shortage along with the high consumption of energy in buildings and the lack of sources. Buildings are the most intensive energy consumers, and account for 40% of worldwide energy use, whi...
The correct estimate of individual thermal energy consumptions, and consequently, a fair heat cost allocation among the residents of apartment buildings with centralized heating systems, represents an important driving force towards energy saving, en...
This work investigates the acoustic characteristics of the double elliptical vault, which overlooks the Grand Staircase of the Royal Palace of Caserta (Italy). The Royal Palace was built by the architect Luigi Vanvitelli in the Seventeenth Century an...
Hot desert regions, like Saudi Arabia, are very challenging in terms of building energy consumption. The role of the housing sector in the country is critical as it accounts for half of the total national electricity consumption. It is important to a...
The current regulations on the energy certification of buildings represent for the real estate market and the building sector a real cultural revolution. In recent years, the focus on the energy efficiency of buildings has grown exponentially. It is...
Detailed simulations have indicated optimum insulation thicknesses of walls’ insulation for a variety of cases. Simplified analytical relations have also been proposed to the same aim, allowing the extraction of more general results, with limited acc...
In recent years, many open-plan houses have been proposed not only for comfort reasons, but also as a place to engage in family life. However, in contrast to the fact that this kind of plan makes it easy for people to interact, the daily life househo...
Lightweight steel-framed (LSF) construction, given its advantages, has the potential to reach high standards in energy and environmental performance of buildings, such as nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEB). When compared with traditional constructio...
This paper proposes an application of Rough Set Theory (RST) to the real estate field, in order to highlight its operational potentialities for mass appraisal purposes. RST allows one to solve the appraisal of real estate units regardless of the dete...
The thermal conductivity of straw bales is an intensively discussed topic in the international straw bale community. Straw bales are, by nature, highly heterogeneous and porous. They can have a relatively large range of density and the baling process...
Thermally comfortable indoor environments are of great importance, as modern lifestyles often require people to spend more than 20 h per day indoors. Since most of the thermal comfort models use a variety of different environmental and personal facto...
Photovoltaic semi-transparent materials (STPV) integrated into glazing systems can offer good potential for energy saving to buildings, influencing heating loads, cooling loads, and lighting, as well as electricity production. Moreover, with the new...
The paper deals with the potential of high energy-efficient windows with granular silica aerogel for energy saving in building refurbishment. Different glazing systems were investigated considering two kinds of granular silica aerogel and different g...
The editors of Buildings would like to express their sincere gratitude to the following reviewers for assessing manuscripts in 2016.[...]
Climate change and its consequences are of a great concern and the likely increasing temperature would add more dilemmas for the choice of passive design options. The performance of building envelopes is one of the key determinants of energy use and...
Building and construction is responsible for up to 30% of annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, commonly reported in carbon equivalent unit. Carbon emissions are incurred in all stages of a building’s life cycle and are generally categorised...
The character of height and density of newly high-rise cities, along with the force of globalization, have jeopardized the character of dwellings once entailing a regional flavor. The critical regionalism which serves as a resistant medium against pl...
Today’s advances in materials science and technology can lead to better buildings with improved energy efficiency and indoor conditions. Particular attention should be directed towards windows and glass facades—jointly known as “glazings”—since curre...
Given the importance of light construction in terms of better performance of structure, in case of earthquake, reduction of life and financial casualties, as well as shortage of studies in this field, the present research studied building non-structu...
In Spain, a significant percentage of the residential building stock presents deficient indoor conditions regarding current energy standards, due to having been constructed before the Norma Básica de la Edificación in 1979 (NBE CT 79) regarding therm...
