Buildings, Volume 9, Issue 3 (March 2019) – 20 articles

This project is part of research series to observe the thermal characteristic of green facade to minimize the cooling load inside building. The aim is to analyze the building thermal characteristic on the green facade installed on a building model. Various kinds of leaves covered area (experiment I: 0%, experiment II: 50%, and experiment III: 90%) were used as the main parameter. Calculation in decrement factor and time lag were also done in order to support the analysis of heat flows calculations. Data measurement showed that ambient and facade surface of green facade with the greatest leaves covered area (experiment III) had lower temperature profiles. Data calculation also showed the highest of average heat flows were found out in the bare wall model. Results for heat flow in the wall surface were 4.69 W/m² (experiment I), 3.88 W/m² (experiment II), and 1.61 W/m² (experiment III). While for heat flows through indoor air space, they were 27.75 W/m² (experiment I), −5.10 W/m² (experiment II), and 8.99 W/m² (experiment III). As shown from data analysis, the quantities of leaves covered area effected the cooling down on the building envelope by reducing the quantity of heat flows from exterior to interior side. Full article

The article presents author’s propositions for shaping free forms of buildings sensitive to harmonious incorporation into built or natural environments. Complex folded structures of buildings roofed with regular shell structures are regarded as the most useful in creative shaping the free forms that can easily adapt to various expected environmental conditions. Three more and more sophisticated methods are proposed for creating variously conditioned free form structures. The first method allows the possibility of combining many single free forms into one structure and leaves the designer full freedom in shaping regular or irregular structures. The second, more sophisticated method introduces additional rules supporting the designer’s spatial reasoning and intuition in imposing regularity of the shapes of the building structure and its roof shell structure. The third, most sophisticated method introduces additional conditions allowing the optimization of the regular shapes and arrangement of complete shell roof segments on the basis of an arbitrary reference surface and a finite number of straight lines normal to the surface. This original, interdisciplinary study offers new insight into, and knowledge of, unconventional methods for the creative shaping of innovative free forms, where great possibility and significant restrictions result from geometrical and mechanical properties of the materials used. Solving a number of issues in the field of civil engineering, descriptive geometry and architecture is crucial in the process of creating these structures. Full article

Purpose—The purpose of this article is to present evidence of occupants’ perception of their work environment in five different office types (Solo, Duo, 2–4, 5–8 and 8Plus offices). The study examined the influence of the number of office occupants on individual perception of indoor environment quality (IEQ) in office environments. Design/methodology/approach—A dataset of 5000 respondents in 67 commercial and institutional office buildings was analysed using IBM SPSS v23. The dataset contained user response on the BUS Methodology questionnaire that is designed to retrieve occupants’ perception of their work environments. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and multiple regression analysis were conducted to calculate the impact of the office environment on occupants’ perception of comfort and productivity. Findings - This study showed that occupants in Solo and Duo offices perceived higher satisfaction with their environment (except for temperature in summer), better health and productivity; and more control over the office environment than those in 5–8 and 8Plus offices. Occupants in 8Plus offices were most satisfied with the temperature in summer. It was also noted that the IEQ factors that predicted comfort were observed to not predict productivity. Noise was the only IEQ factor that had predictive power for both comfort and productivity in all the office spaces. Originality/value—This article provides intriguing findings on occupants’ perception of various types of office environment that contributes significantly to the debate on open-plan versus cellular office environments. Full article

Shaping building objects is conditioned by many interrelated factors, both architectural and structural. Modern tools for shaping structures working in the environment of Rhinoceros 3D such as Grasshopper and Karamba 3D enable algorithmic-aided shaping structures, while allowing the free flow of information between the geometric model and structural model. The aim of the research is to use these tools to test the curvilinear steel bar roofs’ structures shaped based on Catalan surfaces as well as to select the most efficient structure. Three types of roof structures were analyzed: cylindroid shape, conoid shape, and hyperbolic paraboloid shape. In order to find the most preferred structural form, evolutionary structural optimization was carried out, which allowed, among others, to determine optimal discretization of the base surface, as well as optimal positions of supporting columns. As the optimization criterion, the minimum mass of the structure was assumed. The most effective structure turned out to be a structure based on hyperbolic paraboloid supported by multi-branch columns. The use of a roof with the above structure is beneficial not only because of the low weight of the structure compared to the analyzed structures, but also due to the possibility of using flat panels on the roof. Full article

This manuscript focuses on the acoustical behaviors and surface morphology of seashell waste filler reinforced polyester (SFRP) coverings Anadara granosa Linn, Perna viridis Linn, and Placuna placenta Linn and applications in buildings. Their acoustical performances were observed using an impedance tube using a technique with two and four microphones based on ASTM E1050-98 and ASTM E2611-09. The improvements of acoustical performance were conducted by a coupled resonator inclusion with addition of a fibrous dacron layer and back cavity. The experimental results showed that the resonators and back cavity on the material structure were able to shift the absorption ability at low frequency. The promising wide broadband frequencies performance occurred when the 15 mm Placuna placenta FRP treated with front-tailed cavity without any additional fibrous layer and air gap started from 0.2 at 2.0 kHz. The combination of resonators and fibrous layer on the material structure was able to stabilize the sound transmission loss (STL) in 52–56 dB at a high frequency. On the observation of the simple surface morphology material, it was found that Placuna placenta Linn had the highest damping performances due to the smallest pores and the most carbon compound compared to the others. Therefore, this finding is very useful for building applications. Full article

This research presents a novel method for automated construction progress monitoring. Using the proposed method, an accurate and complete 3D point cloud is generated for automatic outdoor and indoor progress monitoring throughout the project duration. In this method, Structured-from-Motion (SFM) and Multi-View-Stereo (MVS) algorithms coupled with photogrammetric principles for the coded targets’ detection are exploited to generate as-built 3D point clouds. The coded targets are utilized to automatically resolve the scale and increase the accuracy of the point cloud generated using SFM and MVS methods. Having generated the point cloud, the CAD model is generated from the as-built point cloud and compared with the as-planned model. Finally, the quantity of the performed work is determined in two real case study projects. The proposed method is compared to the Structured-from-Motion (SFM)/Clustering Multi-Views Stereo (CMVS)/Patch-based Multi-View Stereo (PMVS) algorithm, as a common method for generating 3D point cloud models. The proposed photogrammetric Multi-View Stereo method reveals an accuracy of around 99 percent and the generated noises are less compared to the SFM/CMVS/PMVS algorithm. It is observed that the proposed method has extensively improved the accuracy of generated points cloud compared to the SFM/CMVS/PMVS algorithm. It is believed that the proposed method may present a novel and robust tool for automated progress monitoring in construction projects. Full article

Occupational safety in the construction industry still represents a relevant problem at a global level. In fact, the complexity of working activities in this sector requires a comprehensive approach that goes beyond normative compliance to guarantee safer working conditions. In particular, empirical research on the factors influencing the unsafe behavior of workers needs to be augmented. Thus, the relationship between human factors and safety management issues following a bottom-up approach was investigated. In particular, an easy-to-use procedure that can be used to better address workers’ safety needs augmenting the company’s safety climate and supporting safety management issues was developed. Such an approach, based on the assessment of human reliability factors, was verified in a real case study concerning the users of concrete mixer trucks. The results showed that the majority of human failures were action and retrieval errors, underlining the importance of theoretical and practical training programs as a means to improve safety behavior. In such a context, information and communication activities also resulted beneficially to augment the company’s safety climate. The proposed approach, despite its qualitative nature, allows a clearer understanding of workers’ perceptions of hazards and their risk-taking behavior, providing practical cues to monitor and improve the behavioral aspects of safety climate. Hence, these first results can contribute to augmenting safety knowledge in the construction industry, providing a basis for further investigations on the causalities related to human performances, which are considered a key element in the prevention of accidents. Full article

This paper proposes a graph-based algorithm for constructing 3D Korean traditional houses automatically using a computer graphics technique. In particular, we target designing the most popular traditional house type, a giwa house, whose roof is covered with a set of Korean traditional roof tiles called giwa. In our approach, we divided the whole design processes into two different parts. At a high level, we propose a special data structure called ‘modeling graphs’. A modeling graph consists of a set of nodes and edges. A node represents a particular component of the house and an edge represents the connection between two components with all associated parameters, including an offset vector between components. Users can easily add/ delete nodes and make them connect by an edge through a few mouse clicks. Once a modeling graph is built, then it is interpreted and rendered on a component-by-component basis by traversing nodes in a procedural way. At a low level, we came up with all the required parameters for constructing the components. Among all the components, the most beautiful but complicated part is the gently curved roof structures. In order to represent the sophisticated roof style, we introduce a spline curve-based modeling technique that is able to create curvy silhouettes of three different roof styles. In this process, rather than just applying a simple texture image onto the roof, which is widely used in commercial software, we actually laid out 3D giwa tiles on the roof seamlessly, which generated more realistic looks. Through many experiments, we verified that the proposed algorithm can model and render the giwa house at a real time rate. Full article

This paper presents the experimental results of the structural behavior of four reinforced concrete beams with corroded steel reinforcement at service loads. One beam was non-corroded, one beam was corroded under an accelerated electrochemical technique to a small corrosion level (for one corrosion cycle), while two beams were corroded under the same conditions of an accelerated electrochemical technique and then subjected to vertical service loads that corresponded to 60% and 75% of the yield load of the non-corroded beam respectively for three corrosion cycles (with maximum mass loss around 25% for the first and 31% for the latter). Longitudinal cracks due to corrosion and flexural cracks due to loading were thoroughly recorded at the end of each cycle. The beam under the 75% service load had higher deflection increase for heavier corrosion. After the three successive serviceability load tests, the cracked concrete cover was removed and the steel rebars were treated. The cement-based repair mortar and two NSM FRP laminates were applied to both beams and were tested to failure. Despite the heavy corrosion, the patch repair and NSM strengthening enhanced the load-bearing capacity of the beams when compared with the non-corroded beam. All 10 tests are thoroughly discussed. Full article

In this position paper, we present the results of an ongoing theoretical investigation into the phenomenon of interactive architecture. Interaction in architecture deals with the meaningful exchange of information and physical acts between building and person. This goes beyond responsive systems like automated doors, shading systems, and so on. Most examples of interactive architecture are technological explorations that probe possibilities and the potential for interaction. In this paper we claim that this is not enough. The notion of interactive architecture is explored through social aspects, user experience, situatedness, and agent-based theory. From this we argue that interactive buildings need comprehensive and consistent styles of interaction rather than a series of isolated and unrelated interaction events. Different people in various contexts require different sets of behavior from an interactive building. These sets are conceptualized as interaction narratives, following the work of Maria Lehman. We argue that such narratives can provide a better fit of the interactive building with the user, and lead to a more profound understanding of such systems. Full article

In the context of social vulnerability, the house is an important social and economic resource to cope with poverty. However, low-income homeowners face constraints to maintain their houses, negatively affecting the quality of their dwellings, buildings and neighbourhoods. In the case of Chile, current studies have shown high levels of housing deterioration due to the lack of maintenance, but more knowledge is needed to understand the problems behind this poor management process. One important challenge is to consider an integral approach, beyond the technical dimension, that includes organisational and sociocultural inputs. Therefore, this paper presents the results of an exploratory study about the nature of the management problems in the context of Chilean low-income condominiums. The method considered semi-structured interviews with Chilean homeowners, researchers and professionals from the private sector, municipalities and central government. Main findings show the interdependencies between sociocultural, organisational and technical dimensions of the management problem; and the relevance of the sociocultural variables to perform technical maintenance activities. A better understanding of the nature and relationships among the management problems will provide better tools to improve current housing management models. Full article

Choosing building materials is usually the stage that follows design in the architectural design process, and is rarely used as a main input and driver for the design of the whole building’s geometries or structures. As an approach to have control over the environmental impact of the applied building materials and their after-use scenarios, an approach has been initiated by the author through a series of research studies, architectural built prototypes, and green material developments. This paper illustrates how sustainable building materials can be a main input in the design process, and how digital fabrication technologies can enable variable controlling strategies over the green materials’ properties, enabling adjustable innovative building spaces with new architectural typologies, aesthetic values, and controlled martial life cycles. Through this, a new type of design philosophy by means of applying sustainable building materials with closed life cycles is created. In this paper, three case studies of research pavilions are illustrated. The pavilions were prefabricated and constructed from newly developed sustainable building materials. The applied materials varied between structural and non-structural building materials, where each had a controlled end-of-life scenario. The application of the bio-based building materials was set as an initial design phase, and the architects here participated within two disciplines: once as designers, and additionally as green building material developers. In all three case studies, Design for Deconstruction (DfD) strategies were applied in different manners, encouraging architects to further follow such suggested approaches. Full article

Wind pressure coefficients (C_p) are important values for building engineering applications, such as calculation of wind loads or wind-induced air infiltration and especially for tall buildings that are more susceptible to wind forces. Wind pressure coefficients are influenced by a plethora of parameters, such as building geometry, position on the façade, exposure or sheltering degree, and wind direction. On-site measurements have been performed on a twin medium-rise building complex. Differential pressure measurements have been employed in order to determine the wind pressure coefficients at various positions along the windward façades of the twin buildings. The measurements show that one building provides substantial wind shelter to its twin and the microclimatic effect is captured by the measured wind pressure coefficients. They also showed that the wind pressure coefficients vary significantly spatially along the windward façades of the medium-rise buildings. Furthermore, the pressure measurements showed that the wind pressure coefficients fluctuate significantly during the measuring period. The use of the fluctuating C_p values by means of probability distribution function (pdf) for the calculation of air infiltration has been evaluated. The results indicate that the air flows deriving using fluctuating C_p values are more accurate than the ones calculated by the conventional method of using mean C_p values. Full article

The living lab approach to building science research provides the ability to accurately monitor occupants and their environment and use the resulting data to evaluate the impact that various components of the built environment have on human comfort, health, and well-being. A hypothesized benefit of the living lab approach is the ability to simulate the real indoor environment in an experimentally controlled setting over relatively long periods of time, overcoming a significant hurdle encountered in many chamber-type experimental designs that rarely reflect typical indoor environments. Here, we present indoor environmental quality measurements from a network of sensors as well as building system design and operational data demonstrating the ability of a living lab to realistically simulate a wide range of environmental conditions in an office setting by varying air temperature, lighting, façade control, and sound masking in a series of three human subject experiments. The temporal variability of thermal and lighting conditions was assessed on an hourly basis and demonstrated the significant impact of façade design and control on desk-level measurements of both factors. Additional factors, such as desk layout and building system design (e.g., luminaires, speaker system), also contributed significantly to spatial variability in air temperature, lighting, and sound masking exposures, and this variability was reduced in latter experiments by optimizing desk layout and building system design. While ecologically valid experimental conditions are possible with a living lab, a compromise between realism and consistency in participant experience must often be found by, for example, using an atypical desk layout to reduce spatial variability in natural light exposure. Based on the experiences from these three studies, experimental design and environmental monitoring considerations for future office-based living lab experiments are explored. Full article

The correlation of the architectural form and the structural system should be the basis for rational shaping. This paper presents algorithmic-aided shaping curvilinear steel bar structures for roofs, using modern digital tools, working in the environment of Rhinoceros 3D. The proposed method consists of placing the structural nodes of the shaped bar structure on the so-called base surface. As the base surface, the minimal surfaces with favorable mechanical properties were used. These surfaces were obtained in two optimization methods, due to both the structural and functional requirements. One of the methods used was the so-called form-finding method. It wasalso analyzed the amount of shadow produced by the roof and the adjacent building complex, during a certain research period, to find the roof’s optimal shape. The structure of the optimal shape was then subjected to structural analysis and its members were dimensioned. The dimensioning was carried out for two bar cross-sections, and as the optimization criterion, the smallest structure’s mass was used. The presented research aims to show how it is possible to use generative shaping tools, so as not to block the creative process, to obtain effective, responsive structural forms, that meet both architectural and structural requirements. Full article

In order to assess the airborne sound insulation of a new material or building solution, access to standardized laboratories, large and expensive facilities, and a sample area of at least 10 m² are required. At the research and development stages of new sustainable acoustic materials for construction, it is not easy to make large sample areas available. Moreover, the financial investment in acoustic testing of materials during the research stage in standardized laboratories is excessive. In this work, the assessment of the airborne sound insulation of multi-layer partitions designed with new sustainable materials is presented. The assessed solutions are formed by green composite fiber boards as lightweight elements and a new material designed from sheep wool as absorbent material. The results of these 100% recyclable solutions are compared with lightweight element based solutions, which are commonly used for acoustic insulation. Characterization of those new sustainable solutions for building is leveraged in a reduced sized transmission chamber. The design, construction, and validation of this kind of laboratory are provided. This laboratory enables the assessment of the airborne sound insulation of a material in its research stage. Full article

Over the past few decades, digital tools have become indispensable in the field of architecture. The complex design tasks that make up architectural design methods benefit from utilizing advanced simulation software and, consequently, design solutions have become more nature-adapted and site-specific. Computer simulations and performance-oriented design enable us to address global challenges, such as climate change, in the preliminary conceptual design phase. In this paper, an innovative architectural design method is introduced. This method consists of the following: (1) an analysis of the local microclimate, specifically the wind situation; (2) the parametric shape generation of the airport terminal incorporating wind as a form-finding factor; (3) Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis; and (4) wind-performance studies of various shapes and designs. A combination of programs, such as Rhinoceros (Rhino), and open-source plug-ins, such as Grasshopper and Swift, along with the post-processing software Paraview, are utilized for the wind-performance evaluation of a case study airport terminal in Reykjavik, Iceland. The objective of this wind-performance evaluation is to enhance the local wind situation and, by employing the proposed architectural shape, to regulate the wind pattern to find the optimal wind flow around the designed building. By utilizing the aforementioned software, or other open-source software, the proposed method can be easily integrated into regular architectural practice. Full article

The article concerns a parametric description of unconventional building forms roofed with folded sheeting transformed elastically into shells. The description supports the designer in the search for attractive forms and a rational use of materials. The adoption of strictly defined sets of initial parameters determines the diversification of the designed architectural free-forms. An impact of selected proportions between these parameters on these forms is illustrated by an example of a single structure. Folded elevations and a segmented shell roof make each such structure internally coherent and externally sensitive. The mutual position and proportions of the shape of all elements, such as the roof, eaves, and façades, along with regular patterns in the same structure, determine this consistency of its form and sensitivity to harmonious incorporation into the natural or built environments. The study is a new insight into shaping free-forms of buildings in which the modern and ecological materials determine the important shape and mechanical limitations of these forms. With a skillful approach, the materials allow their extensive use in buildings. However, various interdisciplinary problems related to architectural shaping of free-forms and static and strength work thin-walled shell sheeting roofs must be solved. For effective design it is necessary to use relevant software applications, where spatial reasoning is crucial for ordering the three-dimensional space by means of simplified engineering models. Full article

This paper investigates the potential of using form-stable phase change material (FS-PCM) integrated cement mortars in building envelopes to prevent overheating and to improve summer thermal comfort. The FS-PCM integrated cement mortar was applied as the interior surface plastering mortar of a full-scale test hut and compared with identical test huts built on cement plasterboard (OCB) and gypsum plasterboard (GPB). The test huts were exposed to outdoor climatic conditions, and indoor thermal behaviours were continuously monitored throughout the summer period. The effects of PCM in reducing the overheating was analysed by the intensity of thermal discomfort (ITD_over) and frequency of thermal discomfort (FTD_over) for overheating during the summer days. The comparison between different test huts showed that the application of PCM integrated cement mortars reduced the peak indoor temperature by up to 2.4 °C, compared to GPB and OCB test rooms. More importantly, the analysis of overheating effects revealed that at lower intensive thermal discomfort levels, FS-PCM largely reduces FTD_over. As the intensity of thermal discomfort increases, the reduction in ITD_over becomes dominant. At highly intensive thermal discomfort levels, the reduction was neither apparent in the intensity of thermal discomfort nor the period of discomfort. Full article

The construction industry consumes enormous quantities of concrete, which subsequently produces large amount of material waste during production and demolishing. As a result, the colossal quantity of concrete rubble is disposed in landfills. This paper, therefore, evaluated the feasibility of reusing waste concrete as recycled aggregate (RA) to produce concrete. The replacement levels were 20, 50, and 80% RA of normal coarse aggregate. Micro silica (MS) and fly ash (FA) were used as cementitious replacement material, however, the water-to-binder ratio (w/b) was kept constant at 0.31. A total of 44 specimens were used to evaluate the fresh and hardened properties. Concrete with 80% RA showed good workability and mechanical properties. The compressive strength of the concrete with 80% RA was 60 MPa at 28 days and 77 MPa at 56 days. Rapid chloride penetration test (RCPT) was also conducted, where the concrete with 80% RA had the lowest permeability. Full article