The global demand for cooling in the built environment is expected to increase in the near future due to factors such as climate change and rising temperatures. Solar cooling technologies offer a promising option to address the environmental challenges associated with the growing demand for space cooling. These technologies are based on producing conditioned air or chilled water using solar energy.

Building façades have significant potential for integrating solar cooling technologies and are increasingly evolving into multifunctional components that actively contribute to building energy systems. Through the integration of energy-related services, façades can support energy savings while enhancing occupant comfort. Despite this potential, the widespread application of solar cooling integrated façades remains limited. This is largely due to various technical, economic, and process-related challenges that hinder broader adoption. Providing clear guidance to relevant stakeholders to assess current levels of technology adoption and address existing challenges can play a key role in enabling successful implementation. Accordingly, the main research question of this dissertation is as follows:

How can the design and development of solar cooling integrated façades be guided to support their widespread application?

The research project aimed to provide a product design and development framework for solar cooling integrated façades to support their widespread application. Developing such a framework required several steps, including identifying key challenges and critical aspects to be considered; determining enabling factors and future application prospects; developing strategies to guide façade design and evaluation; and identifying, outlining, and validating key decisions, required information, and involved stakeholders.

Integrating solar cooling technologies into building façades can play a crucial role in reducing reliance on conventional cooling systems. However, incorporating various aspects at the early stages of a project can be challenging for designers due to the diverse types of information, steps, and decisions required. This study aimed to develop strategies for design teams to facilitate the early-stage design and evaluation of building façades integrating solar cooling technologies. The strategies were developed using a research-through-design methodology, considering the Spanish context and a proposed evaluation set-up to assess techno-economic feasibility. The development of strategies involved mapping the design and evaluation of solar cooling integrated façades by identifying and relating key processes, inputs, outputs, design decisions, and tools within key design stages. Consequently, a systematic design and evaluation process was carried out, including the identification and assessment of potential integration scenarios for solar electrically driven and thermally driven technologies based on relevant techno-economic criteria. The findings indicate that water-cooled vapor-compression chillers (VCC), combined with photovoltaic (PV) panels as an electrically driven solution, were the most relevant option for the selected case. Additionally, the developed strategies revealed that early-stage decisions significantly impact later processes, as they involve a greater number of steps, required information, and design choices. These strategies serve as guidelines to support designers in adopting a systematic design approach, helping to manage the complexities associated with processing diverse technical and economic information. Providing such structured methodologies to professionals with limited experience in solar cooling technologies is crucial for enabling their broader application.

Given the global challenges arising from climate change, relevant, promising methods to expedite the energy transition are essential. The integration of solar cooling technologies into façades represents an important option. Potential benefits of applying solar cooling technologies include conserving primary and conventional electricity sources, lowering peak energy demand to achieve cost savings, and offering environmental benefits. This study aimed to support the design team and stakeholders involved at the design and development stages with a framework that supports developing solar cooling integrated façades. This study adopted a participatory research methodology to identify, outline, and validate key decisions, information, and stakeholders supporting product design and development. The key study findings revealed that the integration of solar cooling technologies into façades should be considered at the conception stage, where the client, climate designer, building physicists, building service consultants, and architects were identified as key participants who should be involved in the decision-making process. The most critical information identified for supporting design decisions includes technology costs, performance and efficiency, cooling demand, and construction characteristics of the thermal envelope.

The present research proposes a framework to design and evaluate façade products integrating solar cooling technologies (SCTs), applied in an office building in a Southern Europe region. The building comprises various types of façade elements, such as opaque walls, glazed curtain walls, overhangs, and balconies. Key regulatory measures were implemented considering national energy saving regulations. The results represent annual energy consumption (kWh/m2/year) and the average daily cooling demand in Summer Design Week (kWh/day) of the simulated base model. This energy consumption lies within range of a previously simulated generic office and the average annual energy consumption of office blocks. Potential scenarios for integrating SCTs were outlined and evaluated using the solar fraction (SF) as an indication to measure the potential performance of the system based on nominal efficiencies, providing an initial reference of its ability to meet cooling demands, an essential step in early design stages. Scenarios per configuration related to double-effect chillers with evacuated tubes collectors and water-cooled vapor compression chiller and photovoltaic (PV) panels were the only one having an SF value of 1 or more, meaning that they can be able to handle the required cooling demand. Future steps should consider a second level of technical evaluation of scenarios having SF values of 1 or more, which should involve aspects related to how to physically integrate the technology, considering compactness and space usability and also maintenance requirements, among other relevant criteria.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a rising digital medium that is gaining popularity in the construction sector. Although BIM usage has been mandated in the public construction sector in Saudi Arabia, its adoption remains limited. This paper aims to investigate the driving power of the barriers affecting BIM adoption in construction management through Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM). A literature review and expert meetings were conducted to identify the potential barriers faced by contractors and consultants in BIM usage in the construction management sector. Two different techniques were utilized to rank the identified barriers to adopting BIM in construction management. The first technique, the Relative Importance Index (RII), evaluates and assesses the barriers from both the contractors and consultants' perspectives. The second technique, Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM), identifies the driving power of barriers and understands the correlations among them. A total of sixty-nine responses were analyzed using the RII. Cronbach's alpha was utilized to assess the collected data's reliability. The findings from the ISM were validated by experts to establish relationships among the identified barriers. The ISM reveals that the top driving barrier to BIM adoption is the “Lack of skilled and experienced personnel”, followed by “Lack of awareness”, “Communication issues” and “Longer setup time”. The findings of this study could assist local authorities develop an incentive program to encourage contractors and consultants to adopt BIM in construction management.

Solar cooling integrated façades (SCIFs) have the potential to reduce primary energy consumption for space cooling. Identifying key enabling factors in the context of technical and product (T&P), financial (F), as well as process and stakeholder (P&S) related aspects represent an important step providing relevant knowledge for implementing solutions supporting the widespread application. This study aims to identify main factors enabling the widespread integration of SCTs in façades from the point of view of various professionals. An interview guide was designed to tackle main aspects to be considered for supporting the widespread application. Different criteria were considered to select the interviewees during the data collection, such as participants who worked on the application or façade integration of solar/SCTs in buildings. The findings obtained from a total of 23 interviews revealed that the most frequently mentioned factors are product performance and efficiency, facilitating the delivery of product information to architects and clients, aesthetical acceptability, multidisciplinary teamwork, and ability to customize products. The factors were mapped in the context of façade design and construction processes to establish a matrix for implementing solutions in product development. Majority of the factors were linked to the design phase according interviewees’ perceptions. The results also indicated that newly built office buildings have been perceived to be one of the most relevant types of buildings to be considered for such technologies. The identified enabling factors and prospects of future applications of solar cooling integrated facades (SCIFs) contribute to expand the boundaries of knowledge in the field of building product development.

The application of façade products integrating solar cooling technologies tends to be one of the promising options to be considered for challenges related to the increase in global demand for cooling in the built environment. Accordingly, the technological innovation of such products represent an essential task to be taken into account for meeting the future cooling demand in buildings. However, selecting the right technology and tackling technical and product-related aspects in the context of solar cooling can be challenging, since each technology is different from one another in terms of their working principles. Furthermore, developing such building products can be a complex endeavour, due to the involvement of various components. This paper aims to propose a conceptual approach for designing and developing façade products integrating solar cooling technologies. Proposing this approach required establishing a matrix of key attributes and criteria affecting technological selection through referring to identified key perceived enabling factors by expert interviews in an earlier stage of the study. The outcomes of this study outlined various attributes, such as product performance and efficiency as well as compactness and space usability, that can be used in product development of solar thermally and electrically driven systems, in order to ensure to support the widespread application.

The global attention to solar cooling systems has increased during the last years as a result of the expected growth in the world cooling demand. Such systems encompass the use of renewable energy as the main driver for mitigating indoor temperatures. Currently, some of these technologies are mature enough for their commercial application in buildings. Building facades present high potential for the integration of such technologies. This is because of their direct effect on the indoor comfort of buildings, and also their ability to provide external surfaces exposed to the sun radiation. However, there are different challenges affecting the widespread application of solar cooling integrated façades. This paper aims to identify and categorize these challenges through conducting a comprehensive literature review. A literature review was conducted on scientific papers published in conference proceeding and scientific journals, through considering two databases, namely Scopus and Web of Science. Then the study suggested three main potential dimensions that should be tackled and integrated when supporting the widespread application of the façade integration a particular solar cooling technology. The dimensions include technical, financial, as well as process and stakeholder related aspects. Such proposed dimensions represent an initial step for identifying important aspects to be considered for supporting the product widespread application in the built environment.