Finding structural parameters for energy efficient cities

Europe is going through a great social, economic and environmental period of transition. The changes the EU is currently undergoing have been causing increased awareness about sustainable development, natural resources use and energy efficiency on the agenda at the European level of policy making. However after more than forty years of the...

The Comfort Unit: Developed as part of a Climate Adaptive Skin

In what way would a façade be able to create a comfortable indoor office environment using only the indoor and outdoor environment as its energy sources? The low (average) outdoor temperatures in The Netherlands suggest that the outdoor climate is cold enough to cool the indoor climate through ventilation with fresh outdoor air without resorting...

Swarm Planning: The Development of a Spatial Planning Methodology to Deal with Climate Adaptation

Adaptation to climate change is seen as relatively unpredictable and wicked problem. The design of spatial plans for such a problem requires a spatial planning methodology or approach, which is able to include dynamism and flexibility. The current planning practice does not apply these kinds of approaches. Therefore the Swarm Planning...

Adaptive principles for thermal comfort in dwellings: From comfort temperatures to avoiding discomfort

Many theories on thermal comfort exist and there are many ways to deliver this in an energy efficient way. Both aspects are often studied in a static way and most of these studies only regard one of the aspects, seldom investigating what influence the way of delivering thermal comfort has on the actual perceived thermal comfort. This paper...

Safety Concepts in Structural Glass Engineering: Towards an Integrated Approach

This dissertation proposes the Integrated Approach to Structural Glass Safety, based on four clearly defined element safety properties, damage sensitivity, relative resistance, redundancy, and fracture mode. The Element Safety Diagram (ESD) is introduced to provide an easy-to-read graphical representation of these properties. The safety...

Exergy efficient building design

The Sustainable Office. An exploration of the potential for factor 20 environmental improvement of office accommodation

Sustainable development is the goal of a balance between economy and the environment, whilst establishing a better spread prosperity across the world. In order to make this possible, the environmental load of our commodities needs to be reduced by a factor of 20. This factor 20 can also be translated to the office market. The PhD research...