Buildings — Open Access Journal

This study aimed to identify key drivers behind workers’ satisfaction, perceived productivity, and health in open-plan offices while at the same time understanding design similarities shared by high-performance workspaces. Results from a dataset comprising a total of 8827 post-occupancy evaluation (POE) surveys conducted in 61 offices in Australia and a detailed analysis of a subset of 18 workspaces (n = 1949) are reported here. Combined, the database-level enquiry and the subset analysis helped identifying critical physical environment-related features with the highest correlation scores for perceived productivity, health, and overall comfort of the work area. Dataset-level analysis revealed large-size associations with spatial comfort, indoor air quality, building image and maintenance, noise distraction and privacy, visual comfort, personal control, and connection to the outdoor environment. All high-performance, open-plan offices presented a human-centered approach to interior design, purposely allocated spaces to support a variety of work-related tasks, and implemented biophilic design principles. These findings point to the importance of interior design in high-performance workspaces, especially in relation to open-plan offices. Full article

One of the greatest challenges for the world today is the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. As buildings contribute to almost a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, reducing the energy use of the existing building stock is an important measure for climate change mitigation. In order to increase the renovation pace, there is a need for a comprehensive technical documentation that describes different types of buildings in the existing building stock. The purpose of this study is to analyse and describe existing residential buildings in Sweden. The data are based on published reports from 1967 to 1994 that have not been publicly available in a database for other researchers to study until now. Data from the reports have been transferred to a database and analysed to create a reference for buildings and/or a description of building typology in Sweden. This study found that there is a rather large homogeneity in the existing residential building stock. However, it is not possible to use a single reference building or building technique to cover the majority of the existing buildings. In Sweden, common constructions for exterior walls in multi-dwelling buildings which should be used for further studies are insulated wood infill walls with clay brick façades, lightweight concrete walls with rendered façades and concrete sandwich walls. The most common constructions for one- and two-dwelling buildings are insulated wooden walls with clay brick façades or wooden façades. Furthermore, roof constructions with insulated tie beam and roof constructions where the tie beam is a part of the interior floor slab are frequently used and should be included in further studies. Full article

This paper deals with the behavior of a geopolymer concrete beam (GCB) under shear load using high calcium content fly ash (FA). The effect of the marine environment on the shear strength of GCB was considered by curing the specimen in a sea splashing zone for 28 days. Destructive and non-destructive tests were carried out to determine the properties of geopolymer concrete in different curing environments. Geopolymer concretes cured at room temperature showed higher compressive strength, slightly lower porosity, and higher concrete resistivity than that of those cured in sea water. From the loading test of the GCB under shear load, there was no effect of a sea environment on the crack pattern and crack development of the beam. The shear strength of the GCB generally exceeded the predicted shear strength based on the American Concrete Institute (ACI) Code. Full article

Studying the durability of materials and structures, including 3D-printed structures, is now a key step in better meeting the challenges of sustainable development and integrating technical and economic aspects from the design phase into the execution phase. While digital and robotics technologies have been well developed for construction 3D printing, the material aspect still faces critical issues to meet the evolving requirements for buildings. This research aims to develop performance indicators for 3D-printed materials used in construction regardless of the nature of the material. A general guideline is to be established as a result of this research. Thus, the literature review analyzes traditional durability approaches to construction materials and challenges are identified for potential applications in construction. The results suggest that performance indicators for 3D-printed materials should be checked as printable through an experimental case study. This research could be of interest to researchers, professionals, and start-ups in the construction and materials research fields. Full article

Cities across the Arab Gulf region, especially those in Bahrain, have undergone a notable transformation by virtue of the rapid urbanization of the region. Thus, the characteristics of these cities have encountered massive transformation. Accordingly, both governmental and non-governmental projects are authorized for collaborative work to meet the accelerating demands resulting from the increase in population in the Kingdom of Bahrain. However, such projects have been neglected due to other crucial environmental issues. For instance, these projects have resulted in excessive carbon dioxide gaseous emissions. Consequently, these cities are left to suffer from disregarded public spaces and a limited percentage of designed urban open spaces. The case in Bahrain can be summarized as suffering from an absence of the three pillars of sustainability. This has been a fertile ground for the emergence of various urban devastations, among which the “Urban Heat Island” phenomenon adversely affects the urban context of the city. This research investigates these problems, offering propositions to control Urban Heat Islands (UHIs) in Bahrain. Moreover, it aims to recognize the effect of Green Roof Systems in terms of sustainability in order to mitigate UHIs and reduce the threat of Global Warming. Full article

The demand for energy-efficient housing is on the rise in Egypt. The information about the individual materials used in the construction of typical residential wall assemblies are known in the literature. However, data from lab tests to validate the performance for whole composite walls are limited. Three typical wall types were constructed and tested utilizing a standard experimental evaluation procedure based on thermal convection loads. A research framework combining the validated thermal performance data from the experimental test and the simulated data was developed. The experimental tests were performed utilizing a state-of-the-art guarded hotbox apparatus and following the guidelines of the ASTM C1363-11 standard. The solar radiation load was taken into account in the calculations according to the standard, and the error estimation and uncertainty analysis for the experimental tests are reported. The results of the experimental testing are described and a recommendation of the best wall type is noted. The output of this research will help to initiate a material database of the thermal performance of typical residential wall types used in Egypt that have been validated in the lab. This will be useful for the building industry as a whole to understand the performance of the materials in composite assemblies and their impact on energy efficiency. Full article

In moderate climates, the operation of windows is the most common way to control for thermal comfort. Window-opening behavior (WOB) is a complex process influenced by multiple factors, yet only simple bi-variate analyses between variables obtained from longitudinal datasets have been examined. The goal of this study is to investigate the effects of indoor and outdoor environmental parameters on WOB using a statistical modeling approach called “structural equation modeling.” The results show that the indoor environmental parameters, such as operative temperature and air velocity, mediated the relationship between the outdoor environmental parameters, such as outdoor air temperature and wind gust, and the WOB. The indoor wet-bulb globe temperature rose as the solar radiation increased, and subsequently, both parameters affected the WOB. Also, an increase in outdoor wind gust led to higher indoor air velocity, which in turn resulted in a lower chance of occupants opening the window. By enhancing our understanding of the relationship between these theoretical parameters, improved design strategies on the mediating parameters can be prioritized and communicated early in the building design phase leading to more informed design decisions. Full article

There have been many studies done on the causes of delay on construction projects and building projects all around the world. They use different methods, on different geographical areas, and they come up with different results. There are, however, few studies on industrial and building projects. This paper focuses on industrial/manufacturing projects in Saudi Arabia. The aim of this paper is to identify the major causes of delay in the manufacturing projects in Saudi Arabia. The top causes of delay have been identified through a literature survey and interviews with experts from the industrial field in Saudi Arabia. Twenty-two factors have been identified and listed in a survey that was distributed to professionals in the same field. Two categorizations were made: the first is based on the impact of the cause, and the second is based on the frequency of occurrence of the identified cause. It has been found that the top five impacted causes of delay in the delivery of industrial projects in Saudi Arabia are: difficulties in financing project by contractor/manufacturer, late procurement of materials, late delivery of materials, delay in progress payments, and delay in approving design documents, respectively. In terms of frequency, the top five identified causes are: delay in progress payments, difficulties in financing project by contractor/manufacturer, slowness in decision making, late procurement of materials, and delay in approving design documents, respectively. The diversity of the participants is an important point; therefore, the respondents were from different job positions (management, engineering, etc.), and different categories (contractor, owner, manufacturer, consultant, etc.). It is worth noting that this paper serves not only as an authentic study of the causes of delay in the delivery of industrial projects in Saudi Arabia which is a field that is not widely covered, but also as a fresh paper that gives an indication of the changes that happen to the business over time as compared to previous work. Full article

This paper presents an assessment method that uses weighted graphs to quantify a building’s capacity to support changes. The method is called Spatial Assessment of Generality and Adaptability (SAGA), and evaluates the generality (passive support for change) and adaptability (active support for change) of a building’s spatial configuration. We put forward that the generality and adaptability of a floor plan can be expressed in terms of graph permeability, and introduce a set of five quantitative indicators. To illustrate the method, we evaluate six representative plan layouts, and discuss how their generality and adaptability scores relate to their spatial configuration. We are developing the SAGA method for two areas of application. First, SAGA’s global graph indicators can be used to analyse and compare large sets of plan graphs, for example to map or plan adaptable capacity throughout a building or city. Second, the SAGA method can serve as a tool to inform design, allowing architects to improve the generality and adaptability of their plan layouts. While we conclude that the method has significant strengths and promising applications, the paper ends by discussing ways to make the assessment more robust and extend it beyond measuring spatial configuration. Full article

The growing concern about the protection of built heritage and the sustainability of urban areas has driven the reoccupation of existing masonry buildings, which, in the great majority of the cases, were not designed or constructed to withstand significant seismic forces. This fact, associated with territorial occupation often concentrated in areas with high seismic hazard, makes it essential to look at these buildings from the point of view of the assessment of their seismic vulnerability and retrofitting needs. However, to be effective and efficient, such an assessment must be founded on a solid knowledge of the existing methods and tools, as well as on the criteria that should underlie the selection of the most appropriate to use in each context and situation. Aimed at contributing to systematise that knowledge, this paper presents a comprehensive review of the most relevant vulnerability assessment methods applicable at different scales, as well as the most significant traditional and innovative seismic retrofitting solutions for existing masonry buildings. Full article

There is an increasing demand for the decarbonization of existing buildings. The development of standardized calculation methods has simplified calculation processes and enabled wider engagement with the topic. As the industry advances, optimization and accounting for regional differences will increase in importance. This paper reviews the key drivers in the field, both locally and internationally, and proposes a performance-based evaluation method specific to local construction in Egypt. The aim of the method is to assist in the renovation of existing buildings by guiding the decision-making process through the proposed evaluation framework. A local case study of an existing multi-story apartment building was used to create a baseline for typical local multi-story residential buildings and demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed evaluation method. This framework provides the owners of buildings with a decision-making process by which carbon impacts associated with future renovations and operations of existing buildings can be minimized. Full article

The construction industry contributes to a large proportion of industrial injury and mortality. It is of high importance to evaluate the effectiveness of the Safety Management System (SMS). In particular, it is necessary to compare the quality and level of achievement of SMS and safety performance of a construction project. However, a sizeable sample of construction accidents is often not available. Therefore, possible proxies to indicate the safety performance were established. Moreover, the motivation factors which characterize the quality and level of achievement should be identified. In this study, a structural model has been established to examine the relationship between the SMS implementation and operational & safety performance of the construction projects. Results of the structural model illustrated the relationship between (i) SMS implementation and project safety outcome, (ii) SMS implementation and five motivation factors, and (iii) project safety outcome and six proxies. Results of this study have unfolded the motivation factors in SMS implementation and their subsequent effects on project performance, throwing light on the need to enhance the safety management practice in order to reduce accidents and injuries in the construction industry in the long run. Full article

A ducted photovoltaic façade (DPV) unit was studied using experimental prototype and simulated in a full scale computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. The study comes in two parts; this is Part I, as detailed in the title above, and Part II is titled “A Ducted Photovoltaic Façade Unit with Buoyancy Cooling: Part II CFD Simulation”. The process adopted in the experimental study is replicated in the simulation part. The aim was to optimize the duct width behind the solar cells to allow for a maximum buoyancy-driven cooling for the cells during operation. Duct widths from 5 to 50 cm were tested in a prototype. A duct width of 45 cm had the maximum calculated heat removed from the duct; however, the lowest cell-operating temperature was reported for duct width of 50 cm. It was found that ΔT between ducts’ inlets and outlets range from 5.47 °C to 12.32 °C for duct widths of 5–50 cm, respectively. The ducted system enhanced module efficiency by 12.69% by reducing photovoltaic (PV) temperature by 27 °C from 100 °C to 73 °C. The maximum measured heat recovered from the ducted PV system was 422 W. This is 48.98% from the incident radiation in the test. The total sum of heat recovered and power enhanced by the ducted system was 61.67%. Full article

Current concerns focus on the need to reduce energy consumption in construction and over the lifespan of buildings. A major objective is to create affordable housing. However, reducing the energy needs of the present without harming the needs of future generations remains difficult to put into practice, especially at the level of habitats in arid zones. In this research, a housing design assistance process for building designers is proposed, with the aim of converging towards a global optimum for the correlation and integration of vernacular devices and strategies in an optimized way. This will allow the integration of energy performance indicators and user comfort, in order to ultimately optimize, for this case study, the morphogenesis of residential buildings based on the morphological structure of a proposed building in Biskra, Algeria. This last developed process is articulated on various combinations distinguished for the case of the integration of devices and strategies, which allow maximum energy saving while ensuring the comfort of the occupants. As part of this research, this integration constituted a major challenge and made it possible to achieve a reduction in energy ratio of up to 25.11% compared to the standard building and the objectives of the research. Full article

Building design review is the procedure of checking a design against codes and standard provisions to satisfy the accuracy of the design and identify non-compliances before construction begins. The current approaches for conducting the design review process in an automatic or semi-automatic manner are either based on proprietary, domain-specific or hard-coded rule-based mechanisms. These methods may be effective in their specific applications, but they have the downsides of being costly to maintain, inflexible to modify, and lack a generalized framework of rules and regulations modeling that can adapt to various engineering design realms, and thus don’t support a neutral data standard. They are often referred to as ‘Black Box’ or ‘Gray Box’ approaches. This research offers a new comprehensive framework that reduces the limitations of the cited methods. Building regulations, for instance, are legal documents transcribed and approved by professionals to be interpreted and applied by people. They are hardly as precise as formal logic. Engineers, architects, and contractors can read those technical documents and transform them into scientific notations and software applications. They can extract any data they need, reason about it, and apply it at various phases of the project. How these extraction and use are carried out is a critical component of automating the design review process. The chief goal is to address this issue by developing a Generalized Adaptive Framework (GAF) for a neutral data standard (Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)) that enables automating the code compliance checking processes to achieve design efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The objectives of this study comprise i) to develop a theoretical background to an adaptive framework that supports a neutral data standard for transforming the written code regulations and rules into a computable model, and ii) to define the various modules required for computerizing of the code compliance verification process. Full article

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been gaining widespread adoption in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry across the globe. Consequently, several research studies have attempted to construct a holistic review of the increasing BIM publications to identify the development trend using manual review, scientometric review, bibliometric review, or latent semantic review. These extant studies have often adopted a global view of the development despite the adoption of BIM varying across firms, countries, and continents. This approach is often regarded as not representative of the BIM development in countries and continents at the infancy stage. As BIM is still at the germinating stage of development in Africa and previous reviews are unrepresentative of BIM development in the AEC industry of Africa. This paper aims to present a scientometric review and metasynthesis of BIM development in the African AEC industry to explore the intellectual evolution of BIM, the status quo of BIM across the regions, and any potential barriers hindering BIM proliferation. The review findings revealed a varying level of BIM growth, with North Africa, West Africa, and Southern Africa leading the research development, whilst East Africa and Central Africa are slightly lagging behind. Additionally, the major challenges facing BIM adoption was found as people/process-related barriers. This study has provided valuable insights into BIM development and application in the growing African AEC industry. Full article

Responsive architecture comprises the creation of buildings or structural elements of buildings that adapt in response to external stimuli or internal conditions. The responsiveness of such structures rests on addressing constraints from multiple domains of expertise. The dynamic integration of geometric, structural, material and electronic subsystems requires innovative design methods and processes. This paper reports on the design and fabrication of a responsive carrier component envelope (RCCE) that responds by changing shape through kinetic motion. The design of the RCCE is based on geometry and structure of carrier surfaces populated with a kinetic structural component that responds to external stimuli. We extend earlier prototypes to design a modular, component-driven bottom-up system assembly exploring full-scale material and electronic subsystems for the expansion and retraction of a symmetric polar array based on the Hobermann sphere. We test the kinetic responsiveness of the RCCE with material constraints and simulate responses by connecting the adaptive components with programmable input and behavior. Finally, a concrete situation from practice is presented where 16 fully-functional components of the adaptive component are assembled and tested as part of an interactive public placemaking installation at the Shenzhen MakerFaire Exhibition. The RCCE experimental prototype provides new results on the design and construction of an adaptive assembly in system design and planning, choice of fabrication and assembly methods and incorporation of dynamic forms. This paper concludes that the design and assembly of an adaptive structural component based on RCCE presents results for designing sensitive, creative, adaptable and sustainable architecture. Full article

This paper presents the study of the intervention for the acoustic correction of a modern church. The investigated church was built in the 1960s, with a brutalist style and with a squared plan. The hard materials, including a marble floor and hard plastered walls, were responsible for its reverberation time of over 5 s, resulting in poor speech comprehension. As common in worship spaces, the acoustic improvement interventions were challenged by the denial of covering the walls and the vault with conventional sound-absorbing materials due to aesthetic and architectural reasons. In order to carry out an adequate acoustic correction, while involving minimal interventions, the possibility of using light sound absorbing ceiling sheets was analyzed. The study is divided into three phases: Firstly, the acoustic characteristics of the current building were measured; then, new materials for adequate sound absorption were studied; finally, acoustic simulations were used to evaluate the effects on the acoustic characteristics for different intervention scenarios. The final room was able to shorten its reverberation time to about 2.0 s. Full article

There is always a need for more durable, ductile, and robust materials for buildings, bridges, and other infrastructure due to the drawbacks of existing construction materials. Some of the drawbacks are the corrosion of steel, the brittle failure of concrete, and the performance instabilities that are caused when exposed to different environments. Thus, an innovative system is required to improve the performance and retain the integrity of structures in a harsh environment. To alleviate the situation, Un-plasticized polyvinyl chloride (uPVC) tubes are used as a confining material and their performance was experimentally evaluated by testing uPVC confined equivalent cylinders. Accordingly, unconfined and uPVC confined equivalent concrete cylinders for five different concrete classes, four types of uPVC tube sizes, and the aspect ratios of two (h/D = 2) were prepared and tested under axial compression loads. The result shows that the uPVC confinement increased the strength, ductility factor, and energy absorption in between 1.28–2.35, 1.84–15.3, and 11–243 times the unconfined levels, respectively. The confinement performed well for lower concrete classes and higher thickness to diameter ratios (2t/D). The post-peak behavior of the stress-strain curve was affected by the 2t/D ratio and the absolute value of the slope decreased as the 2t/D ratio increased. Additionally, the uPVC tube has shown several advantages, such as acting as a permanent formwork, protecting the concrete from chemical attacks, preventing the segregation of concrete, preventing peeling, and taking off concrete cover, decreasing the cross-section, and resulting in lighter sections. The uPVC confinement provided a remarkable improvement on the strength, ductility, energy absorption, and post-peak behavior of concrete. Therefore, uPVC tubes can be used as confining material for bridge piers, piles, electric poles, and highway signboards, where the fire risk is very small, though additional research is required on fire resistance mechanisms, such as wire-mesh reinforced mortar cover. Full article