Climate-responsive design: A framework for an energy concept design-decision support tool for architects using principles of climate-responsive design

In climate-responsive design the building becomes an intermediary in its own energy housekeeping, forming a link between the harvest of climate resources and low-energy provision of comfort. Essential here is the employment of climate-responsive building elements; structural and architectural elements in which the energy infrastructure is far...

Understanding Adaptive Capacity in Real Estate and the Built Environment: Climate Change and Extreme Weather in New York City

With climate change well underway, cities worldwide are struggling to develop and apply knowledge that will help advance social, environmental and economic adaptation to extreme weather and changing ecologies. Nowhere is this need more pressing than in the design, development and management of the built environment in New York City. In...

Designing the Urban Microclimate: A framework for a design-decision tool for the dissemination of knowledge on the urban microclimate to the urban design process

The urban microclimate has a significant impact on people’s physical health. Effects range from discomfort, for example sleep disturbance, to life- threatening conditions, such as heat stroke, skin and lung cancer. It is therefore vital that the urban microclimate is given considerable attention in the urban design process. The PhD research...

Exergy in the built environment. The added value of exergy in the assessment and development of energy systems for the built environment.

This doctoral research studied the added value of exergy for the assessment and development of energy systems for the built environment, aiming at a reduced need for high-quality energy input. Currently the analysis and development of energy systems for the built environment is based on the energy concept. Energy however gives an incomplete...

Residential self-selection and travel: The relationship between travel-related attitudes, built environment characteristics and travel behaviour

Most Western national governments aim to influence individual travel patterns – at least to some degree – through spatial planning in residential areas. Nevertheless, the extent to which the characteristics of the built environment influence travel behaviour remains the subject of some debate among travel behaviour researchers. This thesis...

Greening Governance: An Evolutionary Approach to Policy Making for a Sustainable Built Environment

After twenty years of sustainable building policies, the issue of environmental impact of buildings and urban environments remains. Policy makers still have difficulties addressing the ambiguous, contested and dynamic goals encapsulated in the term ‘sustainable development’. How to decide between using zinc or PVC gutters, when knowledge and...

Built environment and car travel: Analyses of interdependencies

An academic and policy debate has been running in recent decades on whether and to what extent travel behaviour is influenced by the built environment. This dissertation addresses this influence on daily travel distance, chaining behaviour, car ownership, and car commuting. As cars are the dominant mode of transport, car travel received most...

Building regulatory enforcement regimes: Comparative analysis of private sector involvement in the enforcement of public building regulations

It is often assumed that traditional regulatory regimes centered on governmental action will benefit from greater private sector involvement. And, under the catchy phrase "from government to governance" globally a wide variety of hybrid forms of governance has emerged. However, little empirical insight exists in the actual effects of such...

Exergy efficient building design

Wind energy in the built environment: Concentrator effects of buildings

This thesis deals with wind energy conversion in the built environment. It gives a description of the wind resources in the built environment that can be converted into energy by a wind turbine. With a focus on maximum energy yield of the wind turbine, it especially deals with the integration of wind turbine and building in such a way that the...