Computational optimization of hempcrete integration: Improving energy performance and minimizing embodied energy in a variety of building types and climates

The growing threat of climate change highlights the necessity for long-term solutions in the construction industry. Buildings account for a large share of worldwide energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, so there is an urgent need for creative techniques to improve energy efficiency and reduce their ecological footprint. This thesis...

Early Stage Optimization Towards a Climate-responsive Design

The world is in a climatic crisis. Extreme weather events are stronger and more frequent than ever before, exacerbated by human induced CO2 from energy production and the built environment. Only 5% of world energy is produced by renewable energy sources, presenting an enormous gap between sustainability and greenhouse gas emitting practices....

Blurring the boundaries: Making way for elephants

Assam is the second largest habitat for Asian Elephants. The systematic habitat destruction and fragmentation on the pretext of agricultural expansion, settlement growth and infrastructural development had rendered the state as hotspot for human-elephant conflicts, claiming as many as 300 elephant lives in the past decade. The diminishing forest...

Passive design guidelines for Philippine housing based on the bahay kubo: Thermal comfort analyses and conceptual implementation of vernacular design strategies

Philippine low-income housing is uncomfortable since it is not built to deal with the hot and humid climate in a passive way. Since local vernacular architecture is known to have a good climatic responsive performance, the aim of this research is to learn how Philippine vernacular design strategies can improve thermal comfort for low-lying, sub...

Designing for climatic phenomena: Exploring the architectural potential of climate responsive design

Excessive amounts of fossil energy have disqualified climatic considerations as boundary factors for architecture. This has limited architects to operate in the visual realm, while the invisible senses that make up climatic design are generally disregarded. As a result contemporary buildings are usually unable to provide balanced living...

Multi-functional Facade Module: for different climate conditions

The building sector is responsible for more than one third of resource consumption globally. Concerning the new construction, new regulations have been set, which impose that by 2020 all new buildings constructed within the EU should reach nearly zero-energy levels. The building envelope plays a strategic role in the energy and environmental...

Towards urban energy transition: How climate-responsive and energy-active urban design can facilitate the transition

The subject of this graduation project is the energy transition within urban environments. This is pursued through, firstly, gaining an understanding of the fossil dependency and how this has affected our cities and practices. In order to overturn this effect and open the way for the urban energy transition, urban design needs to become more...

Climate responsive facade system with translucent PCM

The European Union has approved the Energy Performance of Building Directive, requesting all new building to be near Zero Energy by 2020. This has created challenges and opportunities in the building sector, encouraging the creation of new solutions, which are both energy efficient and environmental friendly. Between many possible explored...

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...

A sustainable habitat for Suriname: Climate responsive design for the humid tropical country of Suriname

Reduce and Reuse

De hoofdvraag voor het afstudeerproject is hoe een bestaand kantoorgebouw getransformeerd kan worden naar woningen met klimaat adaptieve methoden? Om een antwoord op deze vraag te kunnen geven is het onderzoek gericht op klimaat adaptieve methoden welke toepasbaar zijn binnen de architectonische opgave binnen Nederland. Het onderzoeksdoel was om...

International Façades - CROFT: Climate Related Optimized Façade Technologies

"International Façades - CROFT" links the fields of architecture, building services and building physics. It aims at an international diversity in façade design to reduce energy consumption in building design. Current architectural planning practices, such as the International Style, perceive the climate often as a problem, rather than an...

The Haitian Dream: Increasing the economic, social and environmental resilience of the hot and humid, high density urban Haitian neighbourhood by the implementation of climate responsive design

The event of the earthquake on January 12 2010 in Haiti has caused in a disaster which has shocked the world. It resulted in an estimated amount of 250.000 casualties and left over 1.000.000 people homeless. From these numbers it is clear that Haiti needs to become more resilient to hazards to prevent in a future repetition of this disaster. A...