Planning for the regeneration of listed buildings for vulnerable social groups using Zero-Energy and Circular Principles: The case of the refugee settlements of Alexandra’s Avenue in Athens, Greece

The present thesis discusses social, cultural, economic and environmental aspects of problems related to heritage building depreciation, homelessness and lack of affordable housing, with a focus on the more vulnerable social groups. It additionally argues the mitigation of the impact of the cities and the building sector on climate crisis. The...

Energy storage in Parkstad

Parkstad is planning to power most of its electrical grid by solar energy, resulting in an intermittent power supply. One of the methods to solve this intermittency is to create facilities for energy storage. The landscape differs from the rest of the Netherlands by its hilly profile. The most important difference is presence of a large...

Empower Energyscape: Integrating Landscape Quality Into The Design Of Energy Landscape In the Rotterdam-The Hague Metropolitan Area

Located in the large urban area named Randstad, the Rotterdam-The Hague metropolitan area (MRDH) has the largest European port and the majority of Dutch greenhouse sector residing within its borders. Accounted for only 2.7% of the area in the Netherlands, the MRDH consumes 17.3% of the total energy use. However, the MRDH is almost impoverished...

Can TALL be Sustainable?: The potential of Energy Synergy towards a zero-energy mixed-use high-rise building in the Netherlands

The sustainability of high-rise buildings is always a point of debate and doubt in current research and literature. Several studies have been performed about the zero-energy potential for skyscrapers, however taking into consideration single functions, particularly office and housing buildings. Realistic and modern tall building design however...

The gap between plan and practice: Actual energy performance of the zero-energy refurbishment of a terraced house

Prêt-à-Loger, TU Delft’s entry to the Solar Decathlon Europe 2014 (SDE2014), demonstrated the conversion of a common terraced house to energy neutrality, whilst adding value to its living quality. The house was retrofitted according to principles of smart & bioclimatic design, using local circumstances intelligently in the sustainable redesign....

Passive Energy Devices in Ceramics

Buildings with scales, buildings that sweat: this paper proposes two strategies for a materially grounded, performance-based architecture which leverages the strengths of computation and CNC fabrication against the basic properties of traditional ceramics.

Sweetgum Panels: A periodic compliant mechanism for solar shading

The paper describes a novel technique for creating flat, bi-layer, compliant mechanisms for adaptive building components to be used in solar shading. Micro-actuation of these periodic, flexible devices cause innumerable three-dimensional micro-loops to erupt in the panel surface, permitting passage of diffused light while maintaining visual...