Buildings, Volume 10, Issue 12

Studies show that procurement management and its processes strongly affect project success in the construction industry, because the project-oriented organizations in the construction industry prefer to buy goods and services from outside the project...

Architecture has an ancient relationship to mathematics, and symmetry—in the broad sense of the term—is a core topic of both. Yet the contemporary application of theories of symmetry to architecture and built environments is a surprisingl...

Construction materials and systems for the thermal building envelope have played a key role in the improvement of energy efficiency in buildings. Urban heat islands together with the upcoming rising global temperature demand construction solutions th...

Since few years ago only one typology of racks was used to store Grana cheese wheels for aging, which was designed focusing on the sole static behavior. Battened steel columns made by vertical tubes welded to horizontal angles were connected by means...

The paper considers the stress-strain state of a reinforced concrete beam, as a bimodular material, under the action of an impact. The behavior of bimodular concretes with different moduli of elasticity in tension and compression has not been studied...

In Algeria, lighthouses are an essential element of the maritime landscape and constitute a substantial part of the local historical and cultural heritage, marked by a great variety of styles, architecture, geometrical forms, and materials. The study...

Three-dimensional concrete printing (3DCP) has become recognized as a possible alternative to conventional concrete construction, mainly due to its potential to increase productivity and reduce the environmental impact of the construction industry. D...

The number of new homes built in China in 2014 doubled compared to 2004, while Korea has built more than 3000 units every year since 2004 and Japan has built more than 6000 new units. Apartments account for 60% of homes in Korea, so it is anticipated...

Decision-making in design is a cognitive process wherein alternatives are generated and evaluated, potentially enabling a more creative design process. In recent years parametric design’s heightened capacity for automatically generating and eva...

The importance of non-structural elements in performance-based seismic design of buildings is presently widely recognized. These elements may significantly affect the functionality of buildings even for low seismic intensities, in particular for the...

Inspired by the high mechanical performance of diagrid structures, the minimization of material consumption on braced tubes and the expressive potency of tensegrity modular structures, this work proposes an innovative three-dimensional system for tal...

Base (seismic) isolation is a promising technology for seismic protection of buildings and other constructions. Nowadays, it is accepted that such a technique is efficient and reliable; however, it has two major limitations: soft foundation soil, and...

Value management (VM) is one of the principles adopted by stakeholders to manage issues in the building industry. This paper aims to examine VM diffusion between residential building entities in the Egyptian residential building industry. This resear...

Hospitals require the highest energy demands in non-residential buildings. They provide healthcare 24/7/365 and, at the same time, they ensure indoor air quality, thermal comfort and sterility. However, several studies reveal that high indoor tempera...

A one-dimensional transient hygrothermal model was used to simulate eight different wood-frame wall assemblies. Simulations were compared with measured results from a two-year field study exploring the effects of exterior insulation on wall moisture...

To design energy-efficient buildings, energy assessment programs need to be developed for determining the inside air temperature, so that thermal comfort of the occupant can be sustained. The internal temperatures could be calculated through computat...

Thermal comfort plays a main role in encouraging people to use outdoor spaces, specifically in hot arid and humid climates. The reconciliation of climatic aspects during the urban design phase is limited in implementation, due to the need for multidi...

Energy retrofitting of buildings shows great potential in reducing CO₂ emissions. However, most retrofitting studies only focus on a single building type. This paper shows the relative potential in six Finnish building types, to identify possible foc...

This experimental study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of using carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites with special anchoring grooves, specifically in terms of the ability of the concrete–CFRP bond to withstand elevated temper...

Urban vegetation provides undeniable benefits to urban climate, health, thermal comfort and environmental quality of cities and represents one of the most considered urban heat mitigation measures. Despite the plethora of available scientific informa...

Additive manufacturing, including 3D printing (3DP), is one of the critical pillars of Industry 4.0 and the next construction revolution. Several countries, including China, have utilized 3DP on larger scales or real projects. However, reviews of the...

The incessant reportage of cost overruns and abandoned projects in contemporary literature have accentuated the need for a re-examination of the nature of the cost management strategies deployed to these projects. This study explores the potential of...

Takt production has been of great interest in construction during the last few years. In this research, a case study was carried out to demonstrate how the scheduling of an apartment building renovation project that utilizes takt production can be do...

The purpose of the research was to study the response of existing constructions, designed for gravity loads only in the South of Italy, more precisely in the Sicily Region. The building is an existing two-story reinforced concrete structure, built in...

Scientific visualization has been an essential process in the engineering field, enabling the tracking of large-scale simulation data and providing intuitive and comprehendible graphs and models that display useful data. For computational fluid dynam...

Phase change materials (PCMs) are now widely known as potential additives for building insulation materials to provide a thermal mass effect that helps conserve energy and maintain a comfortable indoor temperature. Therefore, the study presented in t...

Image-based social networks are environments where users share their photographs and involuntarily contribute to evolve and to spread the meaning of things. For this reason, it is essential to use this source of information to determine how people pe...

In this paper, a typology of a building erected in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome is described: the Odeon. The Odeon is a covered building, but more modest in size than traditional open-air theatres without roofs. The Odeon could hold a few hundred...

The cost-effectiveness of energy efficiency measures meant to achieve a zero-emission office building is investigated and compared to business as usual energy efficiency measures. The laboratory for zero emission buildings, the ZEB Lab, located in Tr...

The paper presents the results of tests of the impact of hydraulic and bituminous binders on the properties of the cold-recycled mixture (CRM). The composition of the cold-recycled mixture includes two types of different binders, i.e., bituminous bin...

Reliable estimation of energy demands imposed on a structure by a design ground motion is a key component of energy-based design. Although several studies have been conducted to quantify the energy demands in single-degree-of-freedoms systems, few ha...

The construction industry is responsible for the infrastructural and physical development of nations and plays a pivotal role in determining economic equilibrium of nations of the world; hence, there is a need for constant evolving of advanced ways o...

The increasing share of renewable energy sources on the supply side, as well as the so-called electrification pathways on the demand side, has led to peculiar challenges for electrical systems: Indeed, the increasing load demand has to be balanced fr...

Insulation systems for the floor, roof, and external walls play a prominent role in providing a thermal barrier for the building envelope. Design decisions made for the insulation material type and thickness can alleviate potential impacts on the emb...

Cities are prone to excess heat, manifesting as urban heat islands (UHIs). UHIs impose a heat penalty upon urban inhabitants that jeopardizes human health and amplifies the escalating effects of background temperature rises and heatwaves, presenting...

Radiative cooling (RC) is attracting more interest from building engineers and architects. Using the sky as the heat sink, a radiative cooling material can be passively cooled by emitting heat to the sky. As a result of the development of material te...

The slum, self-constructed houses and neighbourhoods, signifies the dwelling and home for a very representative part of humanity. This text analyses the different typologies and the different possible and ethical strategies for foreseeing, for remaki...

This study aims to assess the production of cellular micro-concrete, consisting of quarry dust, calcareous fly ash, cement, and aluminum powder as aerating agent. The proposed mixture design methodology is based on a Box–Behnken fractional factorial...

Typically in structural design, foreseeable loads are assumed in a structural design and dimensioning exercise and design material properties may be handled in a semi-probabilistic approach. Structures can, however, be exposed to largely unforeseeabl...