Thin glass sandwich panel designed for visual comfort: Designing the core of the panel to dynamically enhance the visual comfort of the façade

The main focus of this thesis is on a thin glass sandwich panel combined with a three-dimensional printed core pattern. The core pattern provides stiffness to the panel, but it also influences the daylight transmission. The goal of this research is to design a façade system which can dynamically improve the daylight performance, effectively...

Phase Change Materials Trombe Walls: Exploring the potential application of PCMs in a modular design for thermal and daylight comfort

The rise in average surface temperature has intensified the need to explore new<br/>methods to address climate change. Housing sector is one of the leading contributors to the total energy consumption. As a solution, there has been a growing emphasis on the application of passive strategies in buildings that leverage local climatic conditions....

A luz na casa

Healing by transforming: Creating the empowered healing environment

According to the Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu (RIVM), there will be more focus on tackling the unhealthy effects of urbanization in the near future. This together with the presence of a large stock of vacant buildings and other developments within these urban areas and the challenges which are formed by the developments in...

Machine learning-based assessment tool for predicting daylight and visual comfort

Early design choices in building shape and fenestration significantly influ- ence the yearly daylight performance of office buildings. Annual daylight performance must be analyzed at the conceptual design stage to support building form and fenestration design decisions. However, the simulation modeling and daylight calculations necessary for the...

Relight V&D Haarlem: Daylighting in a former department store

This graduation project deals with the revitalisation of the former V&amp;D department store in Haarlem. The building is transformed into a mixed program, consisting of dwellings and the library of the 21th century. This is not a regular library, on the opposite it is an easily accessible public building which functions as a central meeting...

Humble Giants: Computational Intelligence for Designing More Sustainable High-rise Buildings using Surrogate Models

As urbanization increases around the world, high-rise buildings will continue to become a more prevailing typology, nonetheless, due in part to cumbersome computational simulations, rarely do designers have enough information during the early stages of design, which is the time when their choices affect the most the efficiency of their building....

Optimization Design Workflow for Large Roof Shading Systems

Recently, sustainability is becoming a more important aspect in the building sector. The use of performance-driven approaches are progressively growing interest among architects and engineers. Proper design of a large span roof shading system can positively influence the micro-climate of the space underneath, representing a significant source of...

Climate adaptation concept on a stadium: The new Feyenoord Stadium

The practice of almost any sport requires friendly and comfortable environmental conditions, cool temperatures and medium humidity levels, as well as satisfactory lighting and ventilation performance (Torsing et al., 2016). The complex challenge of designing sport infrastructure is likely to become even bigger in the expected future warmer...

Playing with light: The relationship between daylight and sports hall designs in the Netherlands

Nowadays it is more desirable for daylight to be the prevalent form of lighting in most types of buildings. However, there has been concern about introducing daylight to sports halls since the design of traditional sports halls has tended to exclude natural light. If one looks at the vast majority of sports halls in the Netherlands where...

Daylight in offices: A comparison between the Dutch and European standards for daylight in buildings

The current Dutch standard for daylight in buildings does not assure good daylight quality.<br/>Designers therefore often do not know when a building has good daylight quality and how they can design a visually comfortable and healthy building.<br/><br/>The new European standard for daylight in buildings is more elaborative and recommends a...

The HUB

The HUB is a design which aims to raise the quality of life of the inhabitants of HongKong, in the district of Mong Kok. This is done by implementing daylight simulations, walking-paths simulations and multiple parametric design tools. The Hub will replace an existing building called; 'the Sincere Building', and will provide commercial space,...